一、Brief introduction

　　Vegetable Research Center established in 1994 with 28 professional employees, including 12 senior scientists and 9 doctors. One employee was awarded ‘Nanhai Famous Scholar’ of Hainan province, ‘515 Talent Project’, and ‘Leading Talent’ of Hainan province. Moreover, 4 and 14 employees were awarded as ‘Top talent of Hainan province’ and ‘High-level talent of Hainan province’ respectively. The center won the honorary title of ‘National Advanced Group in agriculture’. The Tropical Vegetable Industry Technology Innovation team of Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences was selected as the first batch of Hainan ‘Double Hundred’ talent team of Hainan province. We have been awarded with 12 provincial and ministerial science and technology awards, including 2 first prizes and 5 second prizes. 16 new varieties obtained the registration and plant variety rights. In the past three years, we presided over 51 projects with 30 million RMB funds, published 42 papers and 3 monographs, and were authorized 40 patents.

　　二、Centre organization

　　Dr. Yang Yan is the Center Director. Dr. Qi Zhiqiang and Dr. Liu Ziji are the deputy director. Four different research fields are of vegetable center, including bitter gourd group (Theme leader: Dr. Yang Yan.), melon research group (Dr. Zhan Yuanfeng.), pepper group (Dr. Liu Ziji.), and characteristic vegetable resources and cultivation group (Dr. Qi Zhiqiang.).

　　三、Centre Orientation

　　We support the rural revitalization for Hainan province and the other tropical areas, such as stabilize prices and supply of vegetables to improve people's livelihood and support the high-quality development of the ‘vegetable basket’. Above of all ,we serve the Belt and Road Initiative with intelligence innovation, contributing national diplomacy.

　　Four research topic include: 1. Collection and preservation of excellent germplasm resources and accurate phenotype identification, 2. Functional gene mining and germplasm creation, 3. Ecological adaptability and cultivation of special varieties, 4. Technology research and ecological healthy cultivation.

　　四、Research Achievement

　　1. Collection and preservation of excellent germplasm resources and accurate phenotypic identification

　　We collected and preserved over 3800 germplasm resources of bitter gourd, watermelon, pepper, okra, cowpea and tomato and other vegetables.

　　2. Functional gene mining and germplasm innovation

　　We studied the hypoglycemic activity of bitter gourd germplasm ‘09-18’. Three doses of bitter gourd powder and three doses of extract could significantly reduce blood glucose.

　　3.New variety breeding of ecological adaptability

　　30 excellent new varieties was released and extended, including watermelon with high glucose and crack tolerance, bitter gourd with fusarium wilt resistance and hypoglycemic function, and hot pepper with high antiviral and capsaicin content.

　　4. Ecological healthy cultivation

　　We screened out various efficient and sustainable cropping rotation systems, elucidated the developing mechanism of continuous cropping obstacle of bitter gourd, and revealed the effecting mechanism of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi on pepper growth and key quality development. We developed cultivation technology of vegetable seedlings with beneficial microbes, integrated disease-resistant grafting seedling technology (eg. bitter gourd, cherry tomato, eggplant, watermelon), and explored vegetable cultivation techniques in tropical islands and shipborne.