The present invention is in the field of plant genetics and provides methods for increasing gene expression of a target gene in a plant or part thereof. In addition the invention relates to methods for modifying the specificity of plant specific promoters and for engineering small non-coding activating RNA (sncaRNA) in order to increase expression of a target gene in a plant or part thereof. The present invention also provides methods for the identification of sncaRNA, and its primary transcripts in a plant capable of increasing gene expression in a plant or part thereof.
