With sea levels rising and groundwater running out, crops that thrive in saltwater could bolster future food supplies. Melino, a plant physiologist, was looking for hardy crops that could thrive in harsh, arid conditions. By some estimates, more than half of the globe’s arable land could become too salty to farm by the year 2050. A recent study from NASA predicts that saltwater will taint 77 percent of the coastal aquifers—groundwater systems that deliver freshwater inland—by 2100. These conditions will be a death sentence for many conventional crops, which aren’t bred to handle high levels of salinity.