Development of stable crops cultivars adapted to environmental constraints is very important for food security. Safflower, an oilseed crop which tolerates environmental abiotic stresses, is suitable for marginal lands relatively dry and deprived from fertilizer inputs or irrigation. A set of Moroccan and introduced cultivars as well as international accessions were conducted at Oujda (Eastern of Morocco) during 2009-2010 for late and conventional sowing under two water regimes, in a field experiment using a completely randomized design, with three replications. The objective was to evaluate the effect of genotype and contrasting environment on safflower behavior and to select genotypes with large adaptation to the contrasted environmental conditions. Morphological, physiological and agronomic traits, as well as the stress susceptibility index (SSI), were recorded in this study. Results showed significant effect of genotype, year (sowing time), water regime and their interaction on most of the studied parameters. Late sowing and drought affected negatively all the parameters except seed oil which lightly increased under drought stress. Number of heads per plant (NHP) had the strongest association with seed yield under both drought and non-drought conditions, and hence could be taken as selection criterion for safflower seed yield improvement. Five accessions showed the highest overall mean seed yield (> 1,000 kg/ha) and four accessions exhibited the highest overall mean seed oil content (> 310 g/kg). For late sowing, the accessions PI262421 and PI537604 produced the highest seed yield (> 800 kg/ha) and the highest seed oil content (> 290 g/kg). For conventional sowing, the accessions PI250076 and PI250523 were the most performant, with a seed yield > 1,300 kg/ha and a seed oil content > 330 g/kg. Based on their mean productivity across environments, their SSI and their MDA, PI271073 and PI250076 could be selected and used as promising germplasm in safflower breeding program in Morocco as well as other dry areas throughout the world.