Seed World: Favorite movie? Ioana Tudor: One of my favorite movies of all time remains “Pulp Fiction.” I love the music and the humor, and each time I get into a McDonalds in Europe, I remember the mayonnaise comment … SW: Favorite music genre? IT: While living in Romania many years ago, I was a big rock music fan and never missed any live concerts. Now I enjoy blues, especially Chicago style. We are lucky in Basel that an enthusiastic local music association keeps bringing U.S. blues musicians for live performances every few months or so! SW: Do you speak more than one language? IT: I grew up in Romania, but during the past 25 years I lived in the United States and Switzerland. English is what I speak most of the time, and occasionally I try to communicate in German (although here in Basel everyone speaks English very well, so there are not too many incentives to progress with German). In addition, during my school years in Communist Romania, we all had to learn Russian, and I picked up a little bit. In retrospect, I wish I had learned more given the growth opportunity for agriculture in the CIS countries. SW: What do you see as the most important innovations in the seed industry over the next decade? IT: Seed technology innovations will continue to bring steep changes in yield. First, hybridization in crops like wheat can bring a significant step change in yield potential. Second, further penetration of GM technology in new geographies (China) and new breeding techniques, like gene editing will make a significant impact on productivity. Lastly, Mother Nature continues to challenge us with resistance building toward existing solutions and this creates new innovation opportunities and keeps our R&D teams very busy. SW: There’s a lot of work being done in the microbial space in seed treatment products. How do you see those working for Syngenta? IT: Generally, biological seed treatment solutions are becoming increasingly appealing to our customers. These products could help increase yield, and they are easier to register than chemicals. As such, they provide more flexibility for tailored solutions by crop and geography. In places such as Europe, where regulatory pressures continue to increase, many of the chemical solutions can no longer be commercialized, and in the future, biocontrols might fill the gap. Seedcare is quite active in this space — we have launched already in the U.S. market a novel biological nematicide Clariva, for which we registered last fall the first ever chemical-biological premix containing fungicides, insecticide plus Clariva. SW Ioana Tudor, global head of Seedcare at Syngenta Crop Protection, discusses living abroad and being adaptable to everything a country has to offer. ABROAD and ADAPTABLE 58 / SEEDWORLD.COM JUNE 2018