Volunteer (botany)

[2] Volunteers often grow from seeds that float in on the wind, are dropped by birds, or are inadvertently mixed into compost.

Volunteers that grow from the seeds of specific cultivars are not reliably identical or similar to their parent and often differ significantly from it.

Such open pollinated plants, if they show desirable characteristics, may be selected to become new cultivars.

There may be special rules about how such plants are managed if any appear after growing the cultivar legitimately under a license.

For example, volunteer winter wheat will germinate to quite high levels in a following oilseed rape crop, usually requiring chemical control measures.