Plants germinated from larger seeds are generally more resistant to abiotic stress, but how is the crosstalk between the signalling pathways that are responsible for stress tolerance and seed size determination coordinated? In this issue (p. 3922), Aizhong Liu, Lai-Sheng Meng and colleagues identify auxin response factor 2 (ARF2) as a key regulator at the intersection of abscisic acid (ABA) signalling in response to drought, and a new pathway, which also involves the transcription factor AINTEGUMENTA (ANT) and COLD-REGULATED 15A (COR15a), that is also involved in the response to drought. They discover that loss-of-function Arf2 mutants and ANT-overexpressing transformants have larger seeds and are more drought resistant than wild-type plants. By contrast, Cor15a-knockout plants have smaller seeds, and this phenotype prevails when crossed to ANT-overexpressing or Arf2 mutant plants. Furthermore, the authors find that ARF2 negatively regulates ANT expression by binding directly in the ANT promoter, whereas ANT binds in the COR15a promoter to increase COR15A expression. Importantly, dysregulation of ABA signalling and disruption of the crosstalk between the ABA and auxin pathways underlie the stress tolerance and large seed phenotypes of Arf2 mutant and ANT-overexpressing plants. Thus, by showing that ABA signalling is sensed by an ARF2–ANT–COR15A pathway that regulates both stress resistance and seed size, this study offers important new insights to help explain why drought tolerance in seedlings correlates with an increased mass of their seeds.