Plant stresses such as pest drought, and excessive temperatures can lead to significant losses of crops each year. There is a continuing need to develop novel plant varieties that are less susceptible to damage or loss by such stresses. The present invention provides a system and method for generating plants having an increased resistance to plant stresses such as drought or adverse temperatures. Transgenic plants expressing a phosphoinositide-specific phospholipase C (PI-PLC) gene can show an unexpected and dramatic improvement in their capacity to tolerate a variety of stress conditions. Moreover, increased PI-PLC expression can further lead to marked increase in plant growth rates, maturation, and lipid content. The present invention encompasses transgenic plants having modifications with regard to PI-PLC pathways, such as altered PI-PLC levels, and plant products thereof.