Dr. Shaun Grassel is a wildlife biologist who works out on the Lower Brule Indian Reservation’s headquarters for the tribe’s Department of Wildlife, Fish and Recreation. In addition, Shaun has recently taken a more active role in managing his family land in Lower Brule, both in ranching and experimenting with growing native grasses, including big…
Soil Health Labs Ep. 36: A Rural Videographer’s Eye-Opening Journey Promoting Soil Health
In the last seven years, the name of Joe Dickie has become more and more synonymous with high quality video that highlights outstanding farmers and ranchers in South Dakota. Many in the South Dakota agricultural community know and trust Joe, but he is a busy man and doesn’t always get to share his whole story….
Soil Health Labs Ep. 35: State Grazing Lands Specialist Reveals Top Tips for Driving Soil Health
In this second of two podcasts with Tanse Herrmann, State Grazinglands Soil Health Specialist in South Dakota, we discuss a number of topics including: How can rangeland managers think about soil health principles as applied to rangeland and not just cropland? What makes adaptive grazing managers so successful, what is their secret? What goes on…
Soil Health Labs Ep. 34: Ranchers Rethink Soil Health for Profit
We caught up with Tanse Hermann, NRCS’s newly appointed State Grazinglands Soil Health Specialist in South Dakota; to our knowledge, this is the first appointment of its kind in the country, and we were thrilled to talk with Tanse. Before we dive into the subjects at hand, Tanse, a man whose love for the FFA,…
Soil Health Labs Ep. 32: Adaptive Management Applied
We catch up with Pat Guptill, rancher from Quinn, SD, Pat grazes his base herd year-round and when he has enough grass in the summer, will take on additional stockers. Pat discusses his basic operating philosophy and business model, he shares with us the number 1 thing he attends to: spoiler alert, these are livestock…
Soil Health Labs Ep. 31: Growing Rangeland Resilience
In this podcast, we talk with Miranda Meehan, NDSU Extension Livestock Environmental Stewardship Specialist. We chat with Miranda about a wide range of subjects that include environmental stewardship and livestock-environmental interactions including: range and riparian ecology, grazing management, integrated crop livestock systems, water quality, and reclamation. Miranda grew up in the agricultural community in North…
Soil Health Labs Ep. 28: Integrating Livestock Back on the Land: Annuals (1/2)
Dr. Cody Zilverberg is not your ordinary rangeland scientist who grew up on the ranch knowing this was exactly what he wanted to do. Cody’s path was somewhat more circuitous – he grew up in Central South Dakota on a registered beef cattle ranch that his parents, brother, and sister-in-law still operate. Cody studied computer…
Soil Health Labs Ep. 26: Exploring the Benefits of Bale Grazing
Jessalyn Bachler is an Extension Range Field Specialist with SDSU, based in Lemmon, SD. Jessalyn graduated from NDSU with her Masters in Range Science with her thesis entitled “Winter Feeding Beef Cattle: a Review on Bale Grazing in the Northern Great Plains”; Jessalyn did her research out at NDSU’s Streeter REC in North Dakota. Apart…
Soil Health Labs Ep. 25: Increasing Grass Production Despite Drought
Bart Carmichael and his wife Shannon run a seed stock operation with their family in Northwest SD, just north of Faith SD. In this interview we kick off with drought – in a 12” rainfall area, Bart says they’re either preparing for a drought or in a drought. In the last 28 years, the Carmichaels…