Z-Strain Spore Print

Z-Strain has an arguable origin… details below. This is a beginner friendly strain!

Some reports suggest this strain was created by the legendary mycologist Paul Stamets, but he’s never publicly accepted credit for this unique mushroom.

There’s another story about a mysterious mycologist named “The Keeper,” who claims to be responsible for cultivating this strain.

The controversy is that The Keeper would take established mushroom strains, rename them, and sell them online as their invented strain through ads in High Times magazine and online.

According to a Reddit thread The Keeper was caught when they used photos of established strains and forgot to change the names of the files when uploading them online under their new strain name.

Others believe this strain came straight out of stock and developed by the legendary mycologist Paul Stamets.

Regardless, the consensus on the origin of the Z-Strain mushroom is that it’s an isolation of the famous Golden Teacher strain, which hails from Mexico, but this hasn’t been confirmed.

Z-Strain Potency & Psilocybin Content

Oakland Hyphae hosts a yearly Psychedelic Conference and The Psilocybin Cup in which cultivators from around the world submit their mushroom strains to compete for the most potent shroom.

In the Spring Oakland Cup 2021, a Z-Strain sample submitted by No Cap was graded “A.” The sample strain had a psilocybin content (PCB) of 0.66% and a psilocin content (PCN) of 0.17%. The total tryptamine level was listed as 0.83%.

While these figures certainly aren’t the highest on this list, we only have one sample to go off. It’s likely that under the right conditions, the Z-strain is capable of much higher potency levels.

We consider the average range for Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms to fall somewhere between 0.5% and 0.9% total tryptamines (dried weight).

Other samples have been found to contain as much as 2% psilocybin and 1.2% psilocin — which would place it in the very potent category. Unfortunately, the official lab reports for these findings have not been made public so we’re unable to confirm these figures.

Comparing Z-Strain to a popular shroom stain and Z-strain’s presumed relative, Golden Teacher, we can see that they’re relatively similar. However, Golden Teachers have a slightly lower psilocybin and psilocin content of 0.73% (based on 11 separate Psilocybin Cup entries across 2 years).

These strain entries were submitted by experienced growers, who we can presume provided the best growing conditions for their mushrooms. -tripsitter.com