Philip Shaw

I checked on my soybeans today. It’s a cool time of year, mid-September. Typically, the days are still warm and crops like soybeans seem to accelerate into harvest. It’s just been the opposite here in the deep southwest of Ontario this past week, but the crop is advancing. If I had bright sunny warm weather,…

Covid19 still stalks our land, but of course it is always a matter of perspective. As of September 3rd, we’ve had 9140 Canadians die from Covid 19. Worldwide, we have 26.1 million cases and rising with 864000 deaths. In farm country, living with the virus is in overdrive as everybody has become accustomed to social…

I had a young farmer tell me last month on the social network twitter, I’m wrong on all accounts. I asked him for an explanation, but really should have answered him with the reality I’m wrong most of the time, but I try to get it right. As August comes to an end, usually it’s…

I took a walk in my soybeans again tonight. On August 20th, I thought I might see some signs of ripening. I grew a variety that was a bit earlier than usually for my area, which I believed might let me get my wheat planted earlier. However, on my field walk tonight, I saw no…

The dog days of August I talked about last week continue with very warm temperatures in southwestern Ontario. The long-range forecast is calling for a dry August. However, with great respect for my friend Bryce Anderson, I don’t know if I can count on that. This past week I was busy working my wheat ground…

It is that time of year again. If they were playing baseball since April, they’d call it the dog days of summer. In southwestern Ontario crops are hitting their stride, some people haven’t had enough rain, but most people have. Needless to say, there have been a myriad of conditions across the province, which leads…

We live in trying times for sure. I’m sure everybody is very tired of Covid19, but that doesn’t mean you should respect it any less. Social distancing and working together has helped Ontario tame the infection rate down, while keeping the virus at bay. We aren’t out of the woods yet, in fact, won’t be…

This past week saw the last of my wheat engulfed into the feeder house of my combine after another wheat season. I didn’t have any wheat in 2019 and with my heavy soil types, that’s never good. Wheat is a soil conditioner to me, always boosting futures yields thru increased tilth and a whole lot…

Wheat harvest in southwestern Ontario was a welcome diversion for me this past week. It’s been two years since I drove my big green monster of a combine through the amber waves of grain as last year the wheat didn’t make it over winter. Wheat is one of the only crops that we expose to…

During my career you have probably read one strategy I always played out with my banker. I’ve always said it’s good to go into the banker and look nervous across the counter once in a while. That stems back to the 1980s when servicing debt was so much harder than it is today. In fact,…