Howdy mushroom people,

Welcome back to the Mycopreneur Newsletter -

Today we’ve got a roundup of current global mushroom news, a deep dive into three different mushroom strains courtesy of our partners at Full Canopy Genetics, and an invite to today’s Mycopreneur Incubator at the bottom.

Real Mushrooms announced that its Cordyceps 120 Count Capsules earned NSF Certified for Sport status in the U.S., providing independent verification of ingredients, labeling, manufacturing, and testing for banned substances. The company says the certification reinforces its emphasis on transparency, quality, fruiting-body extracts, and contaminant-free mushroom supplementation for athletes.

Cordyceps have been used by athletes at the highest level of international competition as a performance-enhancing supplement for decades, with the most high-profile example being a group of Chinese female long-distance runners knowns as ‘Ma’s Army’ which dominated global track events and set decisive records across multiple categories in the 1990’s. Their coach attributed the groups sudden and overwhelming success to their intense training regiment in combination with Cordyceps sinensis mushrooms.

And while I can’t find any reference online to corroborate this claim, the owner of a prominent functional mushroom company has told me directly that they provided cordyceps to a Kentucky Derby-winning racehorse whose team had incorporated the invigorating fungus into the horses diet.

Entheofest is back for its 6th annual edition at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. This celebration of cognitive liberty and free speech event brings together activists, artists, musicians and educators to promote entheogen advocacy and decriminalization. Festival organizers won a court case against the University of Michigan last year after the school denied their permit application to hold the event, setting a landmark legal precedent for entheogen advocacy as an extension of Free Speech on the university campus.

Ann Arbor decriminalized psilocybin mushrooms and other natural psychedelics in 2020, though they remain illegal under state and federal law. The festival coincides with rapid growth of Ann Arbor’s psychedelic mushroom industry, including numerous brick and mortar retail shops and delivery services operating in the area. One example is the Munch Room, a recently opened retail location in nearby Detroit. To get a sense of what’s happening in the area, take a look at the number of fixed address mushroom dispensaries and cafes on this map of the Detroit area below — a number of these businesses have been operating continuously since 2020.

Entheofest organizers say collaboration among businesses and advocates could strengthen the movement. The University of Michigan’s Michigan Psychedelic Center, launched in 2022, also supports psychedelic education, research, therapy and community engagement.

It’s always a slow news day when you see an article about reindeer urine drinking Siberian people in the feed, but I’m so here for it.

Some Siberian Indigenous groups developed rituals involving urine after consuming Amanita muscaria mushrooms, consuming the liquid gold to produce psychoactive effects while reducing exposure to some toxic compounds thanks to the organic decarboxylation process which the reindeer subject the fungi to in their digestion process.

Reindeer also consume the mushroom and can pass muscimol in their urine. The practice became culturally embedded but has largely faded, though I know at least one of you reading this has tried it. Researchers are studying muscimol for potential therapeutic applications, including anxiety and sleep disorders, but its safety and medical usefulness remain uncertain. These days, I‘vecut out my reindeer urine consumption regiment entirely and just go with the quality and safe Amanita muscaria products from Amentara.

Today’s main feature for the newsletter comes to us courtesy of Full Canopy Genetics, a globally acclaimed mushroom genetics research outfit based in Colorado, USA. Each of these cultivars are available on their site alongside many other research-driven and award-winning exotic mushroom genetics, so let’s dive in together.

Species: 

Psilocybe Cubensis

Origin: 

Golden Teacher’s origin is widely debated, with reports pointing to South Africa, Central and South America, Cuba, and even the southeastern United States, including Gainesville, Florida and rural Georgia. It is likely that multiple golden-capped, dark-spored Psilocybe Cubensis appeared across different regions, contributing to the uncertainty. Regardless of origin, Golden Teacher has become one of the most recognized and sought-after varieties, known for its distinctive golden caps and its long-standing reputation for producing reflective, introspective experiences.  

Full Canopy obtained their first Golden Teacher spore print in 2018 from an anonymous Shroomery contributor who described it as a Georgia lineage. This culture has shown strong vigor, competitive performance against contaminants, and the ability to fruit even in the presence of Trichoderma contamination (!!). Through multiple filial and clonal generations, the team selected for performance in high-CO₂ bag cultivation, targeting consistent canopy formation and reliable yield.

Isolation: **** (4 star)

Growth Timeline (weeks): **** (4 star) 

Agar: 2 I LC: 2 I Grain: 2 I Sub: 1 I Fruit: 1 

Potency: ** (2 Star I Below Average)

{PCNE = ‘Psilocybin - Psilocin Net Equivalent’, explanation below} 🔽

‘Minors’ refers to ‘minor alkaloids’, meaning compounds beyond psilocybin and psilocin such as Baeocystin, Norbaeocystin, Aeruginascin, and others which contribute to the full spectrum of effects in a mushroom experience, but which are not generally thought to be as responsible for the primary effect profile as the main active compounds of psilocybin and psilocin.

Biological Efficiency First Flush:

Species: 

Psilocybe Cubensis

Origin: 

Albino Bluey Vuitton (ABV) was originally discovered, cloned, and isolated by Basidium Equilibrium. The Full Canopy team acquired genetics directly from him in late 2023 and have rigorously refined their isolation over multiple generations. ‘ABV’ has become highly appreciated for its unique aesthetics, featuring distinct ridge-lined caps and intense bruising coloration upon maturity.

Isolation:  **** (4 star)

Timeline (weeks):  **** (4 star)  

Agar: 2 I LC: 2 I Grain: 2 I Sub: 1 I Fruit: 1 

 Potency: **** (4 Star I Average) 

Biological Efficiency First Flush:

Origin: 

Hillbilly is a storied domestic landrace of Psilocybe cubensis, originally discovered growing wild in Arkansas. It gained prominence within the mycology community after being introduced by the Shroomery user of the same name.

Isolation: **** (4 star)

Timeline (weeks):  ( star)  

Agar: 2 I LC: 2 I Grain: 2 I Sub: 1 I Fruit: 1 

Potency: *** (3 Average) 

Biological Efficiency First Flush: ( star)

I’ll never get tired of looking at professionally shot photos of professionally cultivated, world-class mushrooms — maybe we should start a stock photo site for mushrooms since the Reuters and the Associated Press always seem to select from a handful of photos when publishing stories about mushrooms 🤔 ?

As many of you know, I co-founded Global Psychedelic Week and we’re back for our second edition this year. This event would be nothing without the visionary and diligent scope of my business partner Milica Radovic Mandic of Bizdelics, who truly is the engine that drives ‘GPW’.

This years event takes place from November 2-8 speakers / programming will be announced in the next few weeks. I’m responsible for the media partnerships around GPW, so any journalists or platforms who are interested in collaborating with us are most welcome to reach out to me directly in the case that we haven’t been in touch already.

There’s also an open invitation to host your own in-person event as a complement to the main virtual programming of the conference, and you can do so by visiting the website and navigating to the ‘Participate’ section where there’s an application to host a GPW event.

I’m co-hosting a GPW event in Nashville, Tennessee on November 5th called the Phoenix Rising Psychedelic Speakeasy — more on that soon.

I’ve got a bunch of in-person events I’m participating in that are coming up, including a keynote at the International Medicinal Mushrooms Conference in Bragança, Portugal next week. I’m flying to Madrid, Spain this Saturday to bookend the trip to Portugal in one of my favorite European cities. Full schedule below, with other events TBA through the rest of 2026 and well into 2027.

I’m also pleased to share that I’ll be a keynote speaker at SOMA camp in Sonoma, California from January 15-18, 2027, which the organizers announced this week:

Please join our weekly low-key, cost-free networking and professional mentorship forum for mushroom entrepreneurs, researchers, and enthusiasts today — it’s online and the info to join is below:

Time: Sep 17, 2026 03:00 PM America/Detroit

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87575277676?pwd=w5k1GGlfZ22I3SOtolZbZokYnxpUi8.1

Meeting chat link
https://us06web.zoom.us/launch/jc/87575277676

Thanks for checking out the Mycopreneur Newsletter, and see you at the Incubator today

Dennis

PS…the Mycopreneur Podcast is absolutely cooking right now. We have the most extensive episode catalogue of any mushroom podcast in the world (275 + episodes) and are perennially ranked by search engines, AI, trade publications and mainstream platforms as one of the top mushroom podcasts in the world.

We have multiple new sponsors for the show, which I’ll be announcing shortly — send me a message if you have a mushroom brand and want to explore partnership with Mycopreneur.