Twenty eight genotypes (seven parents and their 21 F1 crosses) were

evaluated for days to heading, spike length, 1000-grain weight, number of

grains/spike and grain yield/plant under three water regimes (35, 65 and 100 % from

the field capacity of the soil) over two years. Variance analysis revealed that all

studied traits were significantly affected by soil moisture content. Moreover,

genotypes x water regimes interaction was significant for all traits. The parents P3,

P5 and P7 were moderately tolerant for drought stress. The crosses (P1 x P7), (P3 x

P4), (P3 x P7) showed drought susceptibility index less than 0.5 and they were high

tolerant to drought stress. Variance of general combining ability (GCA) and specific

combining ability (SCA) were significant for all studied traits. The ratio GCA/SCA

was more than one for all studied traits at each level of soil available water over two

seasons and over all environments, indicating that additive gene effect was the most

important in the inheritance of studied traits. The parents P3 and P5 were considered

as good combiners for number of spikes/plant, 1000-grain weight and grain

yield/plant, while parents P4 and P7 were considered as the best combiners for days

to heading. The crosses (P1 x P4) and (P3 x P4) are considered as the best

combinations for all studied traits under different levels of soil available water.

Moreover, the crosses; (P1 x P4), (P2 x P6), (P3 x P4), (P4 x P5) and (P4 x P6) could

be considered as the best combinations for number of spikes/plant, 1000-grain weight

and grain yield/plant