Disclosed are non-hypersensitive response eliciting peptides and weak hypersensitive response eliciting peptides that induce active plant responses, and that exhibit improved solubility, stability, resistance to chemical degradation, or a combination of these properties. Use of these peptides or fusion polypeptides, compositions, recombinant host cells or DNA constructs encoding the same, for modulating plant biochemical signaling, imparting disease resistance to plants, enhancing plant growth, imparting tolerance to biotic stress, imparting tolerance and resistance to abiotic stress, imparting desiccation resistance to cuttings removed from ornamental plants, imparting post-harvest disease or post-harvest desiccation resistance to a fruit or vegetable, or enhancing the longevity of fruitor vegetable ripeness are also disclosed.