Li Suwen is a researcher at the Vegetable Research Institute of Tianjin Academy of Agricultural Sciences and deputy director of Tianjin Kerun Vegetable Research Institute. Since April 2019, Li Suwen has taken the lead in leading the team to collect and investigate germplasm resources in Tianjin and surrounding areas. She is not only a front-line staff member of the vanguard of this operation, but also the leader of the germplasm resource investigation team in Jinghai District, Tianjin.

As an investigator and team leader, her work is ordinary but not simple. It is ordinary because this work does not require superb scientific and technological support. It is not simple because she has been down-to-earth and puts work first for three years. The words "real" and "work" run through her work.

Researcher Li Suwen has always had a deep affection for the seed industry and has participated in the cultivation and promotion of more than 20 new vegetable varieties. She is well versed in breeding work and knows the importance of resources. Germplasm resources are the basic materials for breeding, which are equivalent to the chips for the development of the seed industry. With rich germplasm resources, breeders can breed better varieties, and rescuing endangered and rare germplasm resources is of great significance. Therefore, after receiving the task, she devoted herself to the germplasm resource census with great enthusiasm.

Building a team, assigning tasks, and raising requirements were the first shots she fired at the beginning of her work. She formed a young investigation team at Tianjin Kerun Vegetable Research Institute, with a total of 19 people, mainly scientific and technological personnel born in the 1980s. The personnel formed teams freely to carry out the village census. She proposed hard tasks and practical indicators that can be assessed for each team member, requiring the team members to attach great importance to it, take positive actions, and achieve rich results. Li Suwen not only laid out and guided this work, but also participated in it personally. There are 3 technicians who formed a team with her to carry out the germplasm resource census all year round.

Baodi District, Tianjin is the first stop for Li Suwen and her team to carry out the germplasm resource census, and this is also where she grew up. She contacted many relatives and friends. Whether she returned to her hometown or met people from her hometown, she would ask in detail about the existence of old varieties and traditional resources in the village. Once, her cousin in the village brought her a big winter melon. As a breeding technician, she saw that this resource was different from ordinary resources, so she went deep into the village to trace the source of the winter melon in detail. She learned that it was an old variety that the village had been planting since the 1950s and 1960s - the Xishuangshu big winter melon.

In the process of visiting villages and households, she found that many families in Baodi District planted a kind of mung bean resources, which the locals called cat ear beans. There are two types of green pods and purple pods, so she collected them back. After investigation, she believed that cat ear beans are an excellent resource with strong resistance and good flavor that is widely cultivated by farmers in Tianjin and surrounding areas. It has development value, so it is recommended to report this variety to participate in the 2019 National Top Ten Excellent Crop Germplasm Resources Selection.

In Bajianfang Village, Xin'an Town, Baodi District, she was introduced to an elderly family and collected "Old Grandpa Planting Cabbage", which is a long-standing green hemp leaf cabbage resource planted in the elderly's yard. In order to save and utilize the resource as soon as possible, Li Suwen immediately communicated with the cabbage breeding expert of the Vegetable Research Institute via video. While saving the seeds, she pulled out a few cabbages and transported them directly to the breeding base for transplanting. There are many similar incidents. Once there is a clue, she will immediately take people to collect it. Over the past few years, she has been in close contact with the Baodi District Seed Management Station. The two sides have cooperated to visit more than 10 townships and identified and collected more than 60 germplasm resources.

As the team leader, Jinghai District is the main area where Li Suwen is responsible for the census. Here, in addition to mobilizing the seed management station and the planting service center to actively participate in the census, she also fully united the grassroots party branches in rural areas to play the role of a fighting fortress, relying on the village party branch to understand the situation of people around 80 years old in the village and neighboring villages, and gathered the "old hands" of farming together to understand the information of old varieties.

On October 14, 2020, she came to Lijialou Village, Liangwangzhuang Township, Jinghai District. The village party branch took the lead in convening 8 elderly people to come to the discussion. A lot of local resource information was obtained at the symposium, and many resources such as yam, shallot, fennel, wax twisted carrot, and small-leaf coriander were collected. In Caocun and Lvguantun, Chenguantun Town, Jinghai District, they collected two very good resources in conjunction with the village party branch - Caocun garlic and soybeans. Caocun garlic has a long history and is said to be the origin of Baodi six-petal red garlic. The soybean resource is of very good quality. Not only does it not explode after maturity, but the beans are large and round with high yield.

In Jiaojiazhuang Village, Xizhaizhuang Town, Jinghai District, Li Suwen contacted the village party branch and also facilitated such an "old-fashioned" exchange meeting, obtaining germplasm resources such as popping corn, chicken leg onion, and white sorghum. At the symposium, the elderly reported that there is a traditional Jinghai "cabbage melon" with local characteristics, but unfortunately it has been "extinct" since 1963. This indirectly shows the significance of germplasm resource collection. There are many good resources in the folk, and it will be too late if they are not collected and protected. The germplasm resource survey and collection action is indeed a great cause that will benefit the present and the future, which is also the driving force for Li Suwen to always be down-to-earth and work first in this work.

Li Suwen proposed that the working methods should be flexible and effective, and resources must be collected through multiple channels. After many collection actions, she summed up her own experience: go deep into the local area, rely on the local area, unite the local area, give full play to the regional advantages of local seed management departments, seed dealers, planting cooperatives, etc., and collect resources through multiple channels; use the relationship and connections between herself and her relatives and friends in the rural area of Tianjin to expand the collection channels and collect widely; through the village grassroots party branch, convene the elderly in the village to hold a symposium, tell about the old varieties and resources of their childhood, and understand the current situation and dig deep into resource information. These experiences are simple to talk about, but they are effective and are valuable experiences accumulated in the process of practice.

Over the past few years, researcher Li Suwen has led her team to conduct resource surveys with a total mileage of about 16,000 kilometers, visiting 40 towns and 68 administrative villages, and collecting more than 200 germplasm resources. The "Cat's Ear Beans" she collected were rated as the top ten excellent crop germplasm resources in 2019, and the "Old and Young Beans", "Six-Clove Red Garlic", "Waxed Carrots" and "Green Hemp Leaf Cabbage" she collected were rated as the top ten excellent crop germplasm resources in Tianjin.

Tianjin Municipal Agriculture and Rural Affairs Commission