Ever since my first article and blog post about Bulbine Natalensis, the supply chain has been evolving in various ways, both expected and unexpected – and both good and bad.

We haven’t seen any Bulbine-based products released on the market since my original article, and that’s a very good thing. Why? Because the amount of wet harvested herb used to produce 100kgs of dry powder (the type you’d find in a pill) is roughly one ton. To insure a supply for a big company (MuscleTech, Gaspari, BSN), we’d be talking about more herb than is currently being grown in South Africa (although that’s changing, as an American company has recently moved into sharecropping and trademarking the herb with my original source).

Smaller companies actually have an advantage in being first to market, because a 500-1,000 bottle run of the herb would be feasible at the moment  –  a company like MuscleTech (or BSN, or whoever), who would likely be looking to use a 500-1,000 kilograms of Bulbine Natalensis per month, would require a currently-impossible harvest. Look to see Bulbine products hitting the market, first from very small companies, then progressing to the larger ones, and probably (*by the end) to the major players in the industry (as we saw with Fadogia agrestis).

Remember, early this year, I couldn’t get my hands on a full kilogram – but by 2011, enough will likely be grown to see several products hitting the market. And, just the other day, I did a search on Google, and the autofill function showed me that people aren’t just searching for the stuff, but they’re looking to buy it in bulk (meaning we’re about to see several bulbine natalensis products hit the market… I know of at least 5-6 companies who would like to add it to their own test boosters):

If you aren’t sure what the autofill function on Google does, it fills in the most common phrases to go with whatever word you’re searching on. In the case of Bulbine Natalensis, it fills in the kind of words that tell me people are looking to source large quantities of it. In addition, it also appears that someone (no, not me) has recently registered the BulbineNatalensis.com domain name:

But remember, when I first started looking for the stuff, I went through several BN samples, from South Africa as well as China, and all of them were fake except for one (they didn’t even look similar, when you line them up):

Can you spot the real Bulbine Natalensis?

That picture is supposed to be 4 powder samples of Bulbine Natalensis. One of them is real, and was confirmed by an independent analysis – the other three are fake (and don’t even look the same!). And of course, I get daily emails from people in South Africa, China, India, etc…all telling me that they have acres of the stuff growing in their back yard, ready to be harvested and sold to a willing nutritional company…but as of yet, nobody has been able to provide a sample or a COA to me, so I can confirm the validity of their vast herbal empire..(despite one or two of the people seeming pretty legit).

In fact, some of the companies who have “already harvested several thousand kilos of the herb” are operating with only a P.O. box as their physical address. (*Shady!) This same company has told me that they can not provide a Certificate of Authenticity performed by an independent lab for any of their powders. I’d classify them as probable scammers at this point.

There’s one South African dude selling 50mg caps (pre-orders only) on some random sites already (Ebay style), but I’ve got my doubts that they’ve been COA’d and determined to be real.In fact, I’d probably avoid him…especially since he’s got no idea what an effective dose is, and he’s charging $70/bottle. For $70/bottle, you’re going to want to know that each serving is actually an effective dose – and this guy has no idea what that is.

Thus far, other than the original supplier I worked with several months ago (who have gone exclusive with an American sharecropper already), I’ve only been contacted by one potential supplier who I think might turn out to be reputable. I say that because he’s sent me numerous photos of Bulbine Natalensis, clearly being grown in a dedicated crop. So, it seems that various legitimate and illegitimate suppliers of this herb are springing up all over the place. I’m hoping to figure out which is which and keep everyone updated.

Stay Tuned, because this looks like it’s poised to be very big for the natural testosterone booster market.