Reinke Manufacturing's Electrogator 3 pivot has won the AgTech Breakthrough Irrigation Innovation of the Year Award, capping a year in which the Deshler, Nebraska, company rolled out three new additions to its RC3 irrigation control family.

Reinke, family-owned since 1954 and selling center-pivot and lateral-move systems in more than 40 countries, launched the RC3 expansions this spring. The fall award for the E3 pivot came from AgTech Breakthrough, a global market intelligence and recognition platform.

What makes the E3 pivot different?

The award-winning E3 owes its edge to consistent coupler spacing from the center point to the end of the system, including machines fitted with an end gun or corner system. That consistency matters because pivots now do more than apply water — producers also fertigate and spray chemicals through them.

"One of the things people want to say is that a pivot is a pivot," said Chris Roth, Reinke CEO. "But it's not. We were able to think about where the future of irrigation is and where it is going. We talk about precision all the time, but we were thinking about precision on the mechanical side with the E3."

Roth said consumers increasingly want farmers to use water as efficiently as possible, and mechanical precision is part of that answer.

What did Reinke add to RC3?

The spring releases target three control points that historically ran on separate interfaces — the pivot panel, the well and the end of the system.

• RC3 EOS: complete system monitoring with limited remote control through an easy-to-access interface. Powered by ReinCloud software, it works with most pivot brands.
• RC3 Well: sits at the well station, monitors water pressure and water usage, and links well controls to irrigation while connecting to other RC3 devices.
• RC3 Dual: pairs an EOS unit on the last tower with an Ultimate unit at the main control panel, plus an RC3 expansion module for additional sensor inputs.

"Some controls were at the end of the system, some were at the pivot center, others at the well," Roth said. "We needed to make it where the hardware didn't determine the user experience, but the other way around."

Can one app run a mixed pivot fleet?

That is the practical draw for growers like Justin Kinnan, who farms near Cozad, Nebraska, and has run ReinCloud for two years. His operation runs several Reinke pivots built between 2013 and 2024, every one with a swing arm.

"I really like the app because it is kind of self-explanatory how to use," Kinnan said. "It is just like the touch screen Reinke has at their panels, so anyone can figure it out."

Reinke is adding the ability for ReinCloud to manage multiple pivot brands on one app. For Kinnan, that removes the need to juggle three separate vendor apps. He gets local support from technicians at Holdrege Irrigation, which he called extremely useful.

Roth said RC3 and ReinCloud were designed together rather than bolted on, so control, monitoring and decision support live in one place. Because RC3 works on most electric pivot brands, a grower can standardize on one platform across a mixed fleet.

Why it matters at the field level

Roth frames the whole product line around three grower conversations: efficient water use, remote water management, and helping producers make good watering decisions to squeeze maximum yield from every drop applied.

"Everything we build starts with a grower problem," Roth said. "If it doesn't save water, save time or protect yield, it doesn't get much attention."

For irrigators weighing upgrades, the open question is multi-brand compatibility in ReinCloud. Watch for Reinke to broaden third-party pivot support in the app as the RC3 rollout matures — the feature that turns a single-manufacturer control system into a whole-fleet management tool.