The use of maize simulation models to determine the optimum plant population for rainfed environments
allows the evaluation of plant populations over multiple years and locations at a lower cost than
traditional field experimentation. However the APSIM maize model that has been used to conduct some
of these ‘virtual’ experiments assumes that the maximum rate of soil water extraction by the crop root
system is constant across plant populations. This untested assumption may cause grain yield to be overestimated
in lower plant populations. A field experiment was conducted to determine whether maximum
rates of water extraction vary with plant population, and the maximum rate of soil water extraction was
estimated for three plant populations (2.4, 3.5 and 5.5 plants m−2) under water limited conditions. Maximum
soil water extraction rates in the field experiment decreased linearly with plant population, and
no difference was detected between plant populations for the crop lower limit of soil water extraction.
Re-analysis of previous maize simulation experiments demonstrated that the use of inappropriately high
extraction-rate parameters at low plant populations inflated predictions of grain yield, and could cause
erroneous recommendations to be made for plant population. The results demonstrate the importance
of validating crop simulation models across the range of intended treatments.