In 2011 year research project on breeding spring barley genotypes tolerant to temporary drought stresses has started. The authors’ responsibility was to test the productivity of genotypes derived from different parental forms obtained in scope of the project for a drought tolerance in pot experiment. In the years 2011–2013 three consequtive series of experiments with approximately seventy genotypes each year have been carried on. Two reference Polish varieties were included into each set. At the control treatment, plants were grown at the optimal soil moisture level of 13–15% weight by weight for the whole vegetation period. Drought stresses were introduced at the tillering stage (BBCH 23) for the period of 11 days or at full flag leaf stage (BBCH 45-47) for the period of 14 days. At the both stress treatments, the moisture was maintained at the level of 5–6% weight by weight. Plants were harvested at full maturity stage and the grain and straw yields, and yield components i.e. number of productive tillers, number of grains per spike and weight of 1000 grains were determined. Spring barley showed a higher tolerance to the drought stress at tillering stage than at flag leaf stage. Barley genotypes differed in their response to temporary drought stresses due to diverse ability for regenerating after the stress removal. The tolerance of the genotypes to drought stress imposed at tillering stage resulted from their ability to produce additional fertile tillers. The tolerance of the studied spring barley genotypes to temporal drought stress at flag leaf stage can be explained by compensation of the reduced grain number per spike through increasing the weight of 1000 grains.