The present invention provides methods and compositions for modulating drought tolerance and/or other agronomic traits in plants. This invention relates to compositions and methods for down-regulating the level and/or activity of PUB10 in plants for creation of plants with improved abiotic stress tolerance, preferably improved drought tolerance. Thus, in one aspect, the present invention provides an isolated nucleic acid comprising a polynucleotide sequence for use in a recombinant DNA construct or a suppression DNA construct for modulating PUB10 expression.
