The rising costs of materials and components, manufacturers say, are forcing them to increase the pricing of their equipment, which may force machinery dealers to increase the prices of farm equipment to growers, Ag Equipment Intelligence (AEI) reports.

Construction equipment makers, including Caterpillar, Hitachi and Komatsu, announced price hikes ranging from 5% to 10%. That’s a signal that farm machinery suppliers will soon raise prices.

Many attendees at the Farm Equipment Manufacturers Association and Association of Equipment Manufacturers meetings held this past spring told AEI that they already have or will soon raise the price of their equipment from 7% to 11%.

In Other No-Till News

• Trilex 2000 seed-applied fungicide from Bayer CropScience has been approved for use with soybeans. A combination of two proven ingredients — Trilex and Allegiance seed-applied fungicides — Trilex 2000 offers seed and seedling protection vs. Rhizoctonia, Fusarium and Pythium.

• An $80 million central operations center in Russia’s Kaluga region southwest of Moscow will be operational by 2010, Deere & Co. announced recently. The 98-acre facility will include a distribution center for replacement parts, a training facility and the potential for local production.

• BASF reports that in more than 1,150 on-farm trials in 2007, the average yield increase of corn treated with Headline fungicide ranged from 12 to 16 bushels per acre, while soybeans treated with Headline saw yield increases of 4 to 8 bushels per acre. Pioneer reports in its trials that foliar sprays of Headline and Asana insecticide showed an average yield increase…