Volunteer crop plants, resulting from shattered seed of the previous crop, are weeds in the current years crop and fallow fields. A field survey to determine the effect of reduced tillage practices on weed species in the plains area of Montana found volunteer cereals was the weed that increased the most as a result of using reduced tillage practices. Volunteer barley contaminant in wheat, the primary crop of this area, lowers the market value of wheat. The goal of this study was to develop a simple method to rank barley varieties by their relative potential to produce volunteer plants. Assumption: barley varieties with lower or no post harvest seed dormancy are more likely to germinate in the fall and die over winter. Barley varieties with higher levels of post harvest dormancy will not germinate in the fall and will remain viable over winter and germinate the following spring. Seed of selected barley varieties were germinated at room temperature in a 1 part 3% H2O2 + 8 parts distilled water solution, and seed of the same lots were germinated at 20oC on moist blotter in an incubator. Germination of the seed in the peroxide solution was recorded at 48 and 72 hours. The germination of the seed on blotter paper was recorded at 72 and 120 hours. The variety ranking by speed of germination was consistent across germination method and seed sources. However, speed of germination varied by seed source. Hector and Gallatin, known troublesome barley varieteis for wheat producers,intermediate had intermediate rankings for speed of germination.