MTDC presented alternative design philosophies and identified commercially available products at the annual meeting of the Southern Forest Nursery Management Cooperative in 2001. The group was interested in a simple, low-cost design without bells and whistles. They were not especially concerned with conservation of herbicide or reducing the number of personnel required to perform the operation. They said they would only be applying glyphosate, which requires minimal personal protection for the applicator, based on the chemical's label. They wanted the applicator to focus on applying herbicide to the plants rather than having to drive the tractor. Herbicide escaping from the shields Concepts Review Meeting was to be avoided at all cost. The Egedal sprayer met all of the operational requirements, but was too expensive.

Mechanical weeding without herbicides was not desired by the group. They thought a sprayed herbicide was necessary to eliminate the hardier nursery weeds. The FOBRO Brush Hoe was said to work well enough on small weeds in cultivated ground. Some of the more aggressive and efficient mechanical weeders required a special tractor. The roller/wick applicators were ruled out because they might become coated with mud when working on shorter weeds. The other refinements were thought to cost too much.