“Field of Dreams” is a movie about a farmer who builds a baseball field in the middle of his cornfield. A long-remembered line from that movie is “Build it and they will come.” The Summers Manufacturing crew altered the quote: “Ask them what they want, build what they want, and they will buy it.”

“Our vertical-tillage tools were doing well, but we kept hearing farmers say things like, ‘I like high-speed tillage, but I wish I could leave the soil a bit blacker at times,’” explains Bruce Johnson, director of innovation and business development for Summers. “We decided to pull focus groups together and pin them down on exactly what they meant by ‘a little blacker.’”

Not every company would take this approach and invite farmers who operate different brands of vertical-tillage tools, but Summers did. “We made an effort to include guys using as many different brands of vertical-tillage tools and high-speed disks as possible, including our own tools,” Johnson says. “Our goal was to find out what farmers across the Midwest and in the Great Plains really expected from a vertical-tillage tool.”

Plan comes together

What they found, Johnson says, is that different farmers have different opinions. The most central theme, however, is that they want a tool they can run one way on certain soils and another way in different soils, sometimes within the same field.

“It became obvious we needed a tool with adjustable settings for key components, including operating depth, front and rear gang angle, and more,” Johnson says. “We also knew it needed to be simple to operate and easy to adjust. By then, we had the technology to build a tool and provide an iPad so that adjustments could be made from the cab.”

The result was the VRT Renegade, which Summers has offered successfully since 2018. “It’s not a tool for everybody, because some people still just want a tillage tool they can set and go,” Johnson notes. “That’s fine. We offer those tools too. But for someone who really wants to match tillage and residue cover to soil conditions and the landscape, the Renegade allows them to accomplish it.”

Adjustments and presets

Seven different things can be adjusted on the go using the iPad, which sends wireless signals to the tool:

1. blade angle for front gang
2. blade angle for rear gang
3. working depth
4. hitch position, either float or fixed for harder ground
5. active down pressure on wings
6. active down pressure on rolling basket in rear
7. pressure on gauge wheels

“We also include the ability to save preset functions, so an operator can decide which combination of settings works best in a certain field or area, and enter it as a preset,” Johnson says. “The next time he comes back there, he hits one button, and everything adjusts to those same settings.”

One grower maneuvered the settings to deliver the finish he wanted and save fuel at the same time. “He found he could run with less gang angle, get the same finish, save fuel and help the tractor work more efficiently,” Johnson says.