Philip Shaw

It is not often I can say that I’m writing on a Thursday night when the Dow Jones has plummeted almost 1000 points in a day, the worst crash since 1987.  Is a little jittery out there?  I think so.  Mix a little bit of Greece into your agricultural economics had the Canadian dollar going…

Last week it was confirmed that I have glyphosate resistant Giant Ragweed growing on my farm.  I believe there will be many more occurrences of this throughout southwestern Ontario this year and next.  I believe but I’m not sure that my glyphosate resistant Giant Ragweed problem is the second such known problem in Ontario.  However,…

Tonight I got off the tractor at about nine o’clock.  It’s been a good week for planting corn in southwestern Ontario. I was planting a new corn hybrid called SmartStax or what I call “corn for dummies “.  Who knows whether I am right or not?  I put this hybrid on some of my toughest…

I am one of the earliest birds in the neighborhood.  Yes I do get up early but I’m talking about planting corn.  There are some in my neighborhood who cringe with the memory of me planting corn in the snow.  In fact I remember with snow blinding my windshield whether I was doing the right…

Land prices in Ontario farm country have exploded!  In fact to some professional observers in the appraisal business it reminds them of the late 1970s.  That was the time when land prices rose very quickly in an un-paralleled land buying frenzy.  It all came to a crashing end when interest rates went to 23% and…

Is hope on the way?  It’s hard to say.  Last week we had the official prospective planting numbers from the USDA, which always represent the official starting gun on the production season.  In terms of reports the March 31 report is the big enchilada of USDA reports.  It seemed for the last two months we…

Next week at this time we will know him how much corn and soybeans the USDA says US farmers will plant.  As starting guns go, this is it for the 2010 production season.  With my land drying up around southwestern Ontario it won’t be long before I’m digging up corn to see if it’s at…

In a couple of weeks I’ll be “on the land”.  At least that is my hope, having finished up my fall plowing in December.  At this time of year in Ontario, it’s a bonus to create a stale seedbed for corn in 2010.  However, experience has always told me there may be an opportunity in…

The March 10th USDA report was a lot like dreaming about an old girlfriend. In your mind you might think like kissing her again might be a good thing.  However if the day came where that reality ever presented itself, it wouldn’t be so pleasant.  That’s how I feel about kissing the USDA. I think…

So where are we going? What is ahead as the weather turns warm? Or even better, where do we want to go?  As I stand in my fields amidst the last vestiges of winter snow to me that’s the real question.  A week from now we will all know if the USDA had a major…