I once read this book about some climatologist who would plant these tiny grass saplings in the desert. But it was a super hot and arid desert with just loose sand. So he built this small metal plate on a stick that was super simple and he could mass produce in his garage. But anyways he’d plant the grass and bury the plate beneath it with only a tiny bit stick out. And the plate would get extremely hot during the day, but in the night it would retain the heat into the coldest part to let the grass survive. Then it would get cold so once the morning started again it would condense any moisture in the air that would then water the grass. They were self sufficient once in the ground so he just went wild planting them everywhere until the government had to intervene as it started damaging the wildlife that live inside the desert

He was also assassinated or something before his work was finished idk