The present invention relates to transgenic plants having greater tolerance to an abiotic stress, than a control plant for example cold or osmotic stress such as heat, desiccation, drought, freezing, and high salt stress, wherein said transgenic plant comprises a recombinant polynucleotide that encodes a polypeptide wherein the polypeptide comprises a first domain comprising SEQ ID NO: 72, and a second domain that has at least 62% amino acid sequence identity to the second conserved domain of SEQ ID NO: 2 as set forth in Table 1 and the second domain comprises SEQ ID NO: 63 or SEQ ID NO: 64 wherein expression of the polypeptide in the transgenic plant is regulated by a non-constitutive promoter, and expression of the polypeptide in the transgenic plant confers to the transgenic plant said greater tolerance to the abiotic stress wherein said control plant does not comprise the recombinant polynucleotide and said transgenic plant has fewer undesirable developmental abnormalities or fewer adverse morphological effects than a second control plant that expresses the polypeptide under the regulatory control of a constitutive promoter. The invention also provides methods of making these and other types of plants resistant to abiotic stresses, and to seeds and other plant materials of said plants.
