Can you really graze cattle year-round? South Dakota ranchers Pat Guptill and Bart Carmichael say yes — not through miracle, but through mindset. By calving on grass, managing for plant diversity, and timing their moves with nature, they’ve cut feed costs, restored their soils, and rediscovered joy in ranching. Watch the Year-Round Grazing video .

At Wedge Tent Ranch near Faith, SD, Bart Carmichael shows how adaptive grazing, humor, and humility can turn harsh prairie country into a thriving, resilient landscape.

Pete Bauman In the Field In July's Our Amazing Grasslands   video , courtesy of SD Grassland Coalition, we marveled at the hidden value in so-called weeds — goldenrod testing out as rich as alfalfa, prairie clovers, and milkweeds that feed both cattle and monarchs. That story, framed by Joe Dickie's steady lens, left us thinking of diversity not as decoration but as sustenance. This August's Our Amazing Grasslands   video  features SDSU's Pete Bauman walking us onto different

Heath Bullington (Van’s nephew), who runs the farm with Van Mansheim, Lealand Schoon, Van’s soil Health Mentor, and Van in one of his pastures, October 2020. I first visited Van Mansheim about 5 miles north of Colome, in Tripp County, SD, on his farm in October 2020. When I recently sat down again for a podcast interview with him, the conversation quickly grew beyond a podcast. Van is the whole package: no-till, long rotations, cover crops, bale grazing, livestock integration

Some of the forbs in Darrin Michalski’s pasture that form part of nature’s Pharmacy for Livestock. In a short clip taken from the recent SD Grasslands Amazing Grasslands video , we shared Mike McKernan, SDSU’s Pete Bauman, Madison Kovarna, and Josh Lefer’s work clipping and testing dozens of native forbs and grasses to study their nutritional value throughout the season. That video triggered a flood of thoughtful—and skeptical—comments. One in particular stuck with me: "Lots

By the Growing Resilience Team I’ve visited Vermillion, South Dakota, several times, usually under slate-gray skies and spring winds that sweep across the flats without asking permission. But in May of 2025, I made my first trip 26 miles west to Yankton—a place I had long overlooked, nestled near the Jim River and Missouri confluence. As Joe Dickie and I drove from Vermillion toward Yankton—and between Joe’s exclamations of “rooster!” or “hey, two hens!”—I noticed how quickly