The root system is a major sink of assimilates. Plants with better root carbon use efficiency, can explore larger soil volumes, and return more resources than plants with higher root respiration and construction costs. Concurrently, roots with better architecture are more efficient by reducing intra-root competition and locating roots in resource-rich soil layers. Nowadays, very few computer models can address both the physiological costs of root production and maintenance, and root architecture.

We took the explicit root growth model SIMROOT and adapted it to be able to communicate with the widely used, photosynthesis-driven crop growth model CROPGRO. Our work could be seen as an exercise that exemplifies the limitations and difficulties when combining models with very different concepts of root growth. Additionally, the final product could be seen as one of the few simulation instruments able to appraise the tradeoffs between roots physiological costs, root architecture, resource uptake and productivity.

Our first simulation deals with the effect of root economy and aerenchyma formation in maize and dry bean roots as a response of nutrient deficiency