b'Quality, Integrity, Accountabilityand TransparencyAaron Conaway, president of Total Seed Production, shares the values he believes define seedmanship.Seed World (SW): No. 1 favorite TV show currently?Aaron Conaway (AC): There is a 3-way tie: Blue Bloods, The Good Doctor and New Amsterdam. Blue Bloods is a great reflection on working with, for and against family, but with the same common goal and yet still having time to love and reflect at Sunday family dinners. The Good Doctor & New Amsterdam are great reminders that no matter the challenge, problem or adversity there can always be a solution. SW: Beer or wine?AC: Definitely wine, but more specifically any and all Cabernet Sauvignons, especially from Oakville in Napa Valley.SW: What\'s one thing you learned from your first job? AC: A lot of life lessonshard work and customer service, and they have stuck with me to the present. I started working a regular job when I was 11 years old. I worked for a very tough boss, my father, in his full-service gas station. I would work after school, between sport practices, on the weekends and every summer. It was hard work diagnosing and then fixing a different problem on every vehicle, and at the same time, ensuring every customer was satisfied and willing to return to both buy fuel andcycled in production quicker, increased demand for non-have their vehicle repaired.GMO specifications, increased number of different treatment products to apply to the seed, use of the H2A agricultural SW: How do you define "Seedsmanship?" worker program, management of empty seed boxes, multiple AC: Quality, integrity, accountability and transparency in everysoybean trait platforms, etc. aspect of production. It is a way of life every day at Total Seed Production, and it is one of our core values, so we never loseSW: Where do you see seed production going in the sight of it as an individual or as a team! Knowing that thefuture?work were doing here in the agriculture industry is essentialAC: More automation and technology being used. Maybe to humanity, knowing the importance of each and every seedmachinery that once stood alone completing a task will be that passes through our production and treating each one withcombined with other machinery to complete more than one the respect it deserves. Its all about respecting the seed andtask at a time, making a super machine. I think hybrids will keep knowing how much meaning, and hard work, is behind eachgetting better with more science being discovered, hopefully one. eliminating many of the diseases and pest issues we have today, making a super seed. If we could only find a way to SW: How have you seen seed production change in thecontrol the weather! Although, that might be seen in the way last decade? of mass, indoor farming. This would eliminate the obstacles of AC: New complexities have been the biggest changeRefuge- what Mother Nature throws at us, and have complete growing in-a-bag, Roundup hybridization system, new hybrids beingprocesses happen without stepping outdoors.SW62/ SEEDWORLD.COMFEBRUARY 2020'