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