McKennaii ‘Psilocyne McKennaii’ Spores Syringe

1. McKennaii ‘Psilocyne McKennaii’ Spores Syringe

A living mycelium culture of the McKennaii strain, supplied in a culture ampoule with a sterile syringe. It lets you inoculate your own substrate at home without working from a spore print.

McKennaii is named for Terence McKenna and it has a reputation to match: fast, visually striking and notably unforgiving. It is a strain for someone who has already colonised a substrate successfully at least once.

A note on the name. This product is sold under a Latin-looking binomial that does not appear in any recognised mycological index. Names of that kind are trade conventions rather than accepted taxa. We would rather say so than let a made-up species name sit unchallenged on a product page — the culture itself is a well-known cultivated strain, and that is what you are buying.

2. Specifications

3. Green mould

McKennaii’s speed is also its weakness. The same rapid growth that gives fast colonisation makes the substrate attractive to Trichoderma, and this is the strain most likely to go green on an inexperienced grower. Recognising it early is the practical skill:

• It starts white. Early Trichoderma looks very like healthy mycelium, which is exactly why people miss it.
• Then it turns green, usually within a day or two, spreading from a defined patch rather than growing evenly outward.
• The texture differs if you look closely. Mushroom mycelium is fluffy and rhizomorphic; Trichoderma is flatter and more powdery.
• Once green appears the batch is finished. There is no cutting it out and no recovering it.
• Seal it and dispose of it without opening it indoors. An opened contaminated container releases enormous numbers of spores into the room you work in.

3.1 Prevention, which is the only real answer

Sterilise the substrate properly and let it cool fully before inoculating. Work in a still room with the windows shut. Wipe everything with isopropyl alcohol and wash your hands to the wrist. Do not open the container to check on it. None of that is specific to McKennaii — it is just that McKennaii punishes skipping any of it.

4. Inoculating your substrate

1. Prepare the room first. Window shut, no fan, surfaces wiped with isopropyl alcohol, hands washed to the wrist.
2. Wipe the ampoule itself before you open anything.
3. Unwrap the sterile syringe last and keep the needle away from every surface, including your own skin.
4. Draw the culture up and inject in several places across the substrate rather than in one spot.
5. Seal it, label it with the date, and put it in the dark at temperature until it is fully white.

4.1 What success and failure look like

• Going well: white mycelium creeping out from the injection sites, merging over one to two weeks into a single white mass.
• Going wrong: patches of green, grey or blue-green. Mould, and the batch is finished at that point.
• Also going wrong: an ammonia or sour smell, which is bacterial and usually arrives before the visual cue.
• Keep it shut. Look through the container rather than opening it — each opening is a fresh risk.

Early Trichoderma is white and looks like healthy mycelium. By the time it is green the batch has been lost for two days.