Sunflower is a summer crop often subjected to water stress, which could reduce substantiallythe yield. Early sowing is one of the crop management strategies to escape the drought stress mainlyduring flowering. Sowing one or two months earlier may lead to place the seeds and seedlings growthin conditions of low temperature. Low temperature exposure has consequences for most biologicalprocesses. It initiates also a number of physiological changes which can lead the plant to be more coldtolerant. Physiological traits commonly used to underlying cold tolerance, as well as traits associatedwith growth capacity at low temperature, are presented and discussed in the article. The mostimportant ones need to be evaluated in sunflower to explore genetic variability.