3D Printing in Agriculture: Indian Researchers Optimize USG Applicator for Rice Farming — Published in Scientific Reports

A research team from India has demonstrated how 3D printing in agriculture can accelerate the optimization of precision farming equipment. Published in Scientific Reports on April 2, 2026, the study by Tapan Kumar Khura, Sidhartha Sekhar Swain, and colleagues at ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (New Delhi) and IIT Kharagpur (West Bengal) used 3D-printed prototypes to optimize an electronic metering device that delivers urea super granules (USG) precisely into rice paddy soil.

What Is a Urea Super Granule and Why Does Precise Delivery Matter?

Urea super granules (USG) are compressed urea fertilizer pellets larger than standard granules, designed for deep placement directly into paddy soil. Unlike surface application — where nitrogen is easily lost through runoff and volatilization — deep placement allows fertilizer to dissolve slowly in the soil and reach plant roots directly, improving nitrogen use efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, maximizing these benefits requires a device capable of metering USGs one by one with high accuracy and delivering them consistently to the correct depth.

How 3D Printing in Agriculture Optimized the USG Applicator

The research team developed an electronic cell-type metering mechanism and used 3D printing to rapidly prototype metering rollers in five different cell areas (530, 795, 1,060, 1,325, and 1,590 mm²) using PLA material. Rather than manufacturing each prototype through costly conventional mold production, 3D printing enabled fast and low-cost iterative testing — a key advantage in research and development phases where multiple specifications must be evaluated.

Using a combined EDEM (Discrete Element Method) simulation and RSM (Response Surface Methodology) approach, the team identified optimal operating parameters: a cell area of 1,088 mm², a metering roller peripheral speed of 0.24 m/s, and a hopper fill level of 75%. Soil bin validation under these conditions achieved a 97% cell fill rate and a 91% single-cell qualified rate, with a missing cell percentage of 3.2% and a multiple cell percentage of 4.5% — classified as “good” quality by international metering standards.

The Growing Role of Rapid Prototyping in Agricultural Equipment Development

The application of 3D printing in this study reflects a broader shift in how agricultural equipment is developed and tested. In manufacturing, rapid prototyping has long been standard practice — but this research shows the same approach is now reaching agricultural research facilities. For equipment that requires multiple iterations to find optimal specifications, 3D printing offers a decisive advantage in both cost and speed. As more research institutions across Asia adopt digital fabrication tools, the development cycle for precision agricultural devices is likely to accelerate significantly.

AM Insight Asia Perspective

Agriculture is, by nature, an industry that demands customization at scale. Even within India alone, soil conditions, climate, and farming practices vary dramatically between the arid north and the humid paddy fields of the south. Add to this the diversity of farmers themselves — older and younger, male and female, with different physical capabilities and levels of mechanical familiarity — and it becomes clear that agricultural equipment requires far more variation than most manufactured goods. Yet traditionally, the cost of mold production has made such customization prohibitively expensive.

This is precisely where 3D printing holds transformative potential. As this study demonstrates, the ability to rapidly produce and test components of different specifications at low cost makes it possible to design equipment that is genuinely adapted to local conditions and user needs. In a sector where one-size-fits-all solutions have long been the norm out of economic necessity, 3D printing in agriculture could be the technology that finally makes the democratization of agricultural equipment a reality. When Asia’s agricultural research institutions begin to fully embrace this possibility, the breadth of precision farming technology will expand in ways we are only beginning to imagine.