Twenty-day-old barley (Hordeum vulgare L. cv. Ribeka) plants grown as sand culture were exposed to Cu treatment (0, 10, 15 and 20 mg Cu kg-1 sand) for ten days. The effects of excess Cu on both growth and photosynthetic performance were studied in order to identify the most sensitive probes implicating a further development of screening test for Cu tolerance within barley genotypes. The results obtained indicated that stomata conductance and photosynthetic electron transport linked to PSII+OEC exhibited the highest sensitivity to excess Cu, followed by plant dry weigh accumulation, leaf area formation, net photosynthetic rate, photosynthetic electron transport linked to PSI and PSII-OEC. It was concluded that leaf gas exchange parameters, plant dry weight accumulation and leaf area formation present an effective plant test system for screening for barley genotypes with higher Cu tolerance.