Abiotic stress limits crop productivity worldwide, making stress‐resistant crops a major goal for improving food security. Stress resistance is often assessed by comparing genotypes under a single control and stressed level of an abiotic factor, then ranking the genotypes’ overall performance, using a metric like geometric mean productivity (GMP). However, abiotic stress is rarely a presence/absence phenomenon, but often varies continuously. Here, we tested whether the common practice of assessing performance using a single control and stress level is predictive of performance across a range of stress levels. Twelve sunflower genotypes were grown in the greenhouse under one of eight nutrient levels (from non‐limiting to severely limiting) and assessed for performance (shoot dry mass at the budding stage) and related traits at both seedling and budding stages. Contrary to expectations, genotype rankings for GMP were consistent regardless of the two nutrient levels used to calculate GMP. This suggests that, for nutrient stress in sunflower, studies using an arbitrary control and stress level are broadly representative: genotypes with high GMP exhibit high GMP regardless of the nutrient levels used. In addition, GMP values were highly correlated with performance in the respective nutrient levels from which they were calculated; thus, higher GMP for a given genotype indicates that it performed well (relative to other genotypes) under both stressed and non‐stressed conditions. Together, these findings strongly support the current paradigm of comparing genotypes at a single control and stress level as a valid strategy for screening for nutrient stress resistance in sunflower. However, few traits were consistently associated with performance (shoot dry mass) at either high‐ or low‐nutrient availability, and seedling traits were rarely predictive of budding‐stage traits and performance, suggesting further studies are needed to determine the mechanisms underlying nutrient stress resistance in this important oilseed crop.