PhD student Xu Lianghe often checks on how the tomatoes are growing in a greenhouse in Dongsheng district, Ordos City, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
The 27-year-old from Northwest A&F University in Xianyang City, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, has been working here for four months. "I'll probably stay in Ordos to develop my career," Xu said.
"I have a natural affinity for agriculture and rural areas," said Xu, who was raised in the countryside of Jining, east China's Shandong Province.
His research topic is related to greenhouse tomato planting in Ordos' Dongsheng district.
"I gradually developed a love for this land," Xu said, recalling that 10 teachers of an innovation team from Northwest A&F University, including Professor Li Jianming, who has been engaged in facility agriculture for many years, came to Ordos in 2022.
The professor then arranged for teachers and students to travel from Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi, to Ordos on at least 10 occasions, surveying local environmental data and farmers' cultivation conditions before deciding to embark on a journey of the innovative application of facility agriculture technologies in Ordos.
