Philip Shaw

I have yet to put my no-till drill away. With Canada Day staring me down next week, you’d think it would be time. Every year, it seems I have to replant some soybean acres and this year was no different. However, flash rain showers, which dump rain in 15 minutes continued to inundate me over…

There are always a myriad of challenges in agriculture and 2020 isn’t 2019, but it has had had its share. In my neighbourhood in south western Ontario, we are miles ahead of 2019, but sporadic heavy rains have caused quite a few issues. Crops are looking tough, like they have been through a wrestling match….

Rains came to southwestern Ontario overnight, which hopefully will help some of my entombed soybeans break through the inevitable crust which is always their curse. It seems that has been the mantra of the 2020 growing season in my area. Rain has come along at inopportune times to damage both corn and soybean crops. It…

I like to think I can plant soybeans pretty fast, but realistically, I plant them a lot faster than I used to years ago. So that makes me feel good sometimes, especially after a long day when I’ve planted 100 acres by myself amid all the other tasks that go along with that. Back in…

Earlier in May, I had a double-edged challenge, how to I plant soybeans and replant corn all at the same time? Sometimes things happen that way. I know there are many of you who plant corn and soybeans at the same time, but I farm alone, so that paradigm is a bit of a challenge….

It seems like I’ve been freezing to death all spring. Of course, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, as SW Ontario and Quebec had been suffering from a cold snap as has all of the greater Midwest corn belt. Earlier in May I woke up to what I thought was rain overnight only to view…

Corn planting started and finished for me this week. The soils in SW Ontario are dryer and in better shape than anything I had last year. In fact, in 2019, I hardly planted a “fit acre”. It was so different this week with wide open skies and the dust blowing. The only thing that was…

I started planting corn on April 28th. The day was sunny, and I had a quiet anticipation of dropping my corn planter in the ground and seeing my monitor start blinking. I’m not like a lot of other farmers, who revel in the nuances of social lore on the farm. Farming has always been an…

It has been a miserably cold week in Southwestern Ontario. However, it could be worse, you could have been long in the oil market with a boat load of oil to unload. This past week, we saw something very few of us thought we’d see. The nearby May oil contract went negative, something almost unheard…

It has turned cold this week across SW Ontario and we even had a skiff of snow last earlier. That’s not too unusual for late April in these parts as skiff of snow are so much different than what we can expect in a Canadian winter. Needless to say, at least in these parts its…