3-D printers are the talk of the farm

At Kennebec Valley Community College, the printers show great potential for agricultural uses such as seeding, watering chickens and protecting pollinators.

Bo Dennis teaches crop production in Kennebec Valley Community College’s Sustainable Agriculture program. He’s also the manager at the school’s 120-acre organic farm in Hinckley and, as such, spends plenty of time with his hands in the dirt. But these days he also spends a lot of time with a computer and a 3-D printer, producing inexpensive high-tech fixes to a few farm problems.

KVCC is making watering devices for chickens, houses for pollinators and the latest application, seed rollers, items that look like hockey pucks with holes in them. Their function? Making planting row crops easy and efficient. Read more»