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Abscisic acid (ABA) is an essential plant hormone that regulates multiple aspects of plant development and numerous abiotic stress responses (Cutler et al., 2010; Waadt et al., 2022). In fact, at the heart of plants’ responses to stresses such as salinity, drought, and hypertonic conditions, among others, is this phytohormone (Cutler et al., 2010; Waadt et al., 2022). Interestingly, stress-triggered and developmental responses to this hormone have been found to involve basic RNA metabolism components, including the two subunits of the nuclear cap-binding complex, ABA HYPERSENSITIVE1 (ABH1/CBP80) and CBP20 (Hugouvieux et al., 2001). Additionally, multiple lines of evidence have linked small RNA (smRNA)-mediated RNA silencing to ABA responses (Gregory et al., 2008; Laubinger et al., 2008). A new study by Yan et al. (2025) has provided new insights regarding how RNA degradation and silencing factors modulate smRNA biogenesis from NITRATE REDUCTASE1/2 transcripts to affect ABA-regulated abiotic stress responses.