The landscape changed.
Clinton Rasmusson talks about grazing his goats on a brush-choked draw to clean up woody plants.
The Rasmussons’ Syfan Spanish goats rotate through pastures to clean up woody plants in the summer. Here they graze in a winter pasture closer to home.
Rasmusson’s Syfan Spanish goats eat woody plants, helping clean brush from pastures.
A controlled burn is conducted on private property near Yankton, S.D., to help control eastern redcedar growth.
A brush pile is aflame during a controlled burn on the Johnson property west of Yankton, S.D.
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Hundreds of small dead cedars dot the landscape a few days after a prescribed burn near Yankton this past spring.
This series of photos shows an aerial view of Tom Hausmann’s Gregory County pasture.
1) In 1955 when he was a kid he doesn’t remember any conversations about cedar trees, he said. “As the years went by, there was more talk about ‘those danged cedars’ but nothing was done about it,” he said.
2) In 2016, after 61 years of ignoring the problem, the “glacier” became so bad the Hausmanns could pasture only about one-third the cows they used to. “I finally decided to do something about the trees. In 2018 I held my first burn,” Hausmann said.
3) In 2023, after shearing cedar trees on about 190 acres, the pastures have been opened up. More shearing, on a small scale, will continue, Hausmann said. He expects regrowth in areas that have been mechanically removed and plans to use fire to control it. “But now I’m burning trees from 2 to 4 feet tall instead of 20-plus feet tall,” he said. “That is much simpler and obviously much safer.”
Clinton Rasmusson examines an eastern redcedar tree on his property near White River, S.D., after goats grazed there earlier in the year.
A before and after view of a pasture where Rasmusson’s goats grazed in June shows how the animals stripped woody plants of their leaves.
Janelle Atyeo is a small town South Dakota girl enjoying her work as regional editor of the Midwest Messenger and Tri-State Neighbor while raising kids and no-till vegetables in central Sioux Falls. Reach her at janelle.atyeo@lee.net.
Janelle Atyeo
Editor
