Thirty six genotypes ( 8 parents and their 28 F₁ crosses ) were evaluated for days to heading,  plant height, grain yield/plant and 1000–grain weight under four levels of soil available water ( 25, 50, 75 and 100%) over two years. Highly significant differences among parents,  F₁ crosses and parents vs. crosses over two years and over all environments were obtained for all studied traits. Also, genotype x irrigation interaction was highly significant for all traits. Year x genotype x irrigation interaction was highly significant for all traits, except days to heading. Decreasing the level of soil available water reduced number of days from sowing to heading, plant height, grain yield/plant and 1000-grain weight. Drought tolerance index (DTI) and drought susceptibility index (DSI) were estimated for grain yield/plant. The parents P₁and P₅ were relatively drought tolerant. The crosses ( P₁ x P₅), (P₁ x P₈), (P₃ x P₈) and ( P₄ x P₆) displayed DSI values less than one and they were relatively tolerant to drought .
General (GCA) and specific ( SCA) combining ability variances were highly significant for all studied traits. The ratio of GCA to SCA was more than one for days to heading, indicating that additive gene effect played a major role in the inheritance for this  trait.
The stability analysis for grain yield revealed that the intermediate yielding parents P₂, P₃ and P₄ were stable and ranged in yield/plant from 13.51 to 17.29g. The crosses including P₂ and P₄ were stable. The cross (P₄ x P₆) was relatively tolerant to drought and stable for grain yield/plant. In addition, it could be considered as the best cross combination for all studied traits under different levels of soil available water. This cross could be used in a breeding program for drought tolerance.