Happy New Year!

 

I want to offer a special invitation to all of you to attend one, or hopefully both, of the upcoming events noted above this February. The events will be held in Tampa immediately following the AAPFCO midyear meetings. The dates for Methods Forum II and Method Validation Seminar ’08 are February 20-23. The location will be the Sheraton Tampa Riverwalk Hotel. The dates for the AAPFCO meeting (http://www.aapfco.org/aapfcomeet.html) are February 16-20 at the same location.

 

If you have attended a forum in the past or are thinking about this one please take a moment to read the two brochures to get an idea of what is planned and how you can benefit from attending. Past attendance has been good (50-80) bringing together many fertilizer industry and regulatory chemists from across North America. As noted above, there are two meetings this time, each for a specific reason, thus they require separate registrations and fees. But if you are interested in attending both events, or have more than one person per organization attend, discounts are available.

 

A brief overview of each event, who and why you should attend, is below. Also, please take time to open the attachments to learn more and to register. Space is limited to the first 25 applicants in the Validation Seminar, so make you plans soon!

 

Methods Forum II –

   

We will continue to address open issues held over from previous Metals Forums such as; alternate digestion equipment and solvents, other detection procedures, Hg determination, and more. In addition, we will build on the work begun last year on other fertilizer methods for nutrients. These will be based on the updated community method needs prioritization (which many of you will receive shortly) that will be presented at the forum. Much work needs to be done to provide our industry and regulators the best most up to date methods to measure fertilizer products. This meeting provides the mechanism to develop needed methods and it is where that work will begin.

 

Who should attend?

Regulatory, Academic, Vendor, Commercial and Industry Chemists who analyze nutrients and contaminants in fertilizers. Technical Experts, Lab and Quality Managers, Product Managers; Regulators and State Control Officials that wane to assure that accurate efficient and cost effective methods are developed used and accepted across regulatory and industry laboratories.

 

Method Validation Seminar ’08 –

 

This new event is designed to develop expertise of industry and regulatory chemists in the areas of method development, in-house and multi-lab validations, as well as understanding what is required to conform to US and internationally accepted method formats and protocols. Additionally, how to write and review proposed methods that are fit for their purpose in terms of their chemistry, statistics and scope will be presented by an industry professional experienced in this area. This information will be valuable no matter whether you are working to develop or review - an in-house screening method, a quick in-plant QC test, update your current lab methods for performance, or participate in a full collaborative validation study. It is always good to know you are using fully validated and defensible methods to generate the data you rely upon to make decisions.

 

 

Who should attend?

Chemists/Lab Managers from; Regulatory, Academic, Vendor, Commercial & Industry labs developing or validating methods for in-house screening or QC use or for use by other labs. In addition, chemists or other s that are planning to develop or propose a method for use in support of a new product, nutrient, ingredient or beneficial substance need to know how to develop acceptable methods and validate them.

 

More Information -

Ore information will follow in a few weeks with specific agendas and schedules. If you have any questions regarding these meetings please let me know via email at bill.hall@mosaicco or by phone at 863-428-7161. Please consider attending these events and gaining the knowledge needed to keep you lab developing the best possible methods and producing reliable defensible results.

 

Thanks,

Bill Hall