For landowners

If you own ranch land in Kansas and you do not live on it, or you just bought it, the usual problem is simple. Cedar is coming in, the fence is down, the weeds are up, and you do not know who to call.

HirePlains is a starting list. It is not an endorsement. Every page says "Not yet verified by the business" until that operator claims it. Call, ask the questions on the job page, and get the work in writing.

Before you hire

Walk the place, or have someone send current photos. "Forty acres of cedar" can mean a few trees or a closed canopy.
Know the county. Burn rules and who to notify are local.
Ask for insurance when the job uses machines, fire, or chemicals.
Write down the acres or the miles, what is included, who buys materials, and when they can start.
If you live away, name a local person the crew can call when a gate is locked.

Clearing cedar and brush

A person in a hard hat and chaps cuts a large eastern red cedar with a chainsaw on dry grass. — Cutting eastern red cedar at McConnell Air Force Base, Sedgwick County, Kansas. Photo: Dana Shellhorn, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Public domain. Source. Resized, saved as WebP, camera location removed.

Eastern red cedar is the common problem in central Kansas pasture. Mulching leaves chips and can be done in more months of the year. Piling takes a burn day and a cleanup plan. Hedge and honey locust grow back if you only cut the stump. Say which trees stay: creek shade, a windbreak, the homestead.

Cedar and brush clearing contractors, with questions to ask.

Prescribed burns

A line of fire moving through prairie grass, with blackened ground in front of the flames. — Prescribed burn at Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Chase County, Kansas. The black ground is the backburn. The taller flame is the head fire. Photo: National Park Service. Public domain. Source. Resized, saved as WebP, camera data removed.

Ranchers burn pasture in Kansas to knock back cedar and brush and to manage grass. Hiring it done is ordinary. Lighting it with no plan is how hay, pasture, and a neighbor's place get burned. This page is about hiring. It is not a set of steps for setting a fire yourself.

Two ways to get a burn done:

Hire a contractor from the burn list.
Ask about a local Prescribed Burn Association. These are landowner groups. Members share labor and equipment and burn each other's places on days when the weather is right. They are common in the Flint Hills and in other parts of Kansas, including the Gyp Hills. Your county conservation district or the local K-State Research and Extension office can tell you if one covers your county. The Kansas Prescribed Fire Council is the statewide group that works with them.

Confirm who notifies the county and the fire department, who carries insurance, and what weather cancels the day. Do not treat a burn date as firm until the crew says the weather is right. In the Flint Hills, most pasture burning is in the spring, and the window is short.

Fencing

A barbed-wire fence with weathered wood posts and a brace, running through dry prairie grass. — Barbed wire and a wood brace on the northern Great Plains, near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Not a Kansas job photo. Photo: Bruce Guenter. CC BY 2.0. Source. Resized and saved as WebP. No other changes.

Budget the fence line, not just the wire. Brush on the line, creek crossings, and corners cost more than a straight run of T-posts. If the old fence is buried in cedar, a fencing crew may want the line cleared first. Some contractors do both. The listing shows both jobs when a public source said so.

Ranch fence builders.

Spraying

A green tractor with a wide spray boom crosses a bare field, with prairie and water behind it. — Herbicide sprayed with a boom before a prairie reseeding. Carlson Waterfowl Production Area, LaMoure County, North Dakota. This is not a Kansas brush job. Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Mountain-Prairie. Public domain. Source. Resized, saved as WebP, camera data removed.

Spray is for weeds and brush the label covers. It is a poor match for a pasture already full of big cedar. Ask if the applicator does pasture work or only row crops, and ask for their Kansas pesticide business license. An airplane covers rough ground a ground rig cannot. A ground rig is easier to keep inside a small patch.

Pasture spraying contractors.

If a listing is wrong

Businesses close, change phones, and change what they do. If a number is dead, use List your business to say so. Operators can claim, correct, or remove a listing. There is no charge to be listed.