C-ROOT: a general continuous model of root growth based on root architecture and development of plants

Modelling and simulating plant root growth in connection with soil water and nutrient transfer is an important challenge that finds applications in many fields of research. If root architectural models are suited for making the functional link between plant growth and soil (Jourdan and Rey, 1997; Pagès et al., 2004), at the individual scale, continuous approaches (Dupuy et al., 2010) based on aggregated variables and density functions, i.e. topologically not explicit, can be necessary to simulate root growth at the stand/crop level. The C-ROOT model presented here belongs to this second category. It is a general continuous root growth model that aggregates architectural and developmental information. The model was implemented in C++ language and tested on three case studies representing different root growth patterns.