Background: Drought is a major social and economic problem resulting in huge yield reduction in the field. Today's challenge is to develop plants with reduced water requirements and stable yields in fluctuating environmental conditions. Arabidopsis thaliana is an excellent model for identifying potential targets for plant breeding. Drought tolerance in the field was successfully conferred to crops by transferring genes from this model species. While involved in a plant genomics programme, which aims to identify new genes responsible for plant response to abiotic stress, we identified ESKIMO1 as a key gene involved in plant water economy as well as cold acclimation and salt tolerance.