Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to drought tolerant transgenic plants and methods of creating the drought tolerant transgenic plants. In one embodiment, plants are transformed such that a PYL polypeptide is overexpressed in the plant. In an embodiment, the plant is transformed with a cassette or vector that comprises a polynucleotide encoding for one or more of the PYL polypeptides, which may be under the control of an inducible or constitutive promoter. In embodiments, overexpression of PYL13 results in plants having increased drought tolerance, such as a decreased transpiration rate, a decreased stomatal conductance, an increased photosynthetic rate, accelerated stress responsive gene expression, and increased water use efficiency, and/or an increased survival rate compared to a control plant. In some embodiments, other PYL proteins having the single point mutations identified in PYL13 are expressed in the plant.
