Hire help

HirePlains is a starting list for those than own or manage land in Kansas. It is not an endorsement and a listing does not get a verified badge until that contractor 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 and is often not specific enough for a contractor to properly estimate the job.
Know the county rules and if you need to notify anyone of the work.
Ask for insurance if the job uses machines, fire, or chemicals.
Write down the acres, miles, what is included, who buys materials, and when they can start.
If you live away from the property, name a local person the crew can call.

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.

Cedar is a common problem in central Kansas pasture. Mulching leaves chips and can be done in more months of the year. Piling needs a burn day and a cleanup plan. Hedge and honey locust grow back if you only cut the stump. Specify which trees stay if you don’t want them all removed.

Cedar and brush clearing contractors

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. Lighting it with no plan is how hay, pasture, and neighbor’s properties 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 local groups of farmers and ranchers who burn together. 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 will cancel the burn date. 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 for the fence line because brush on the line, creek crossings, and corners cost more than a clear run of fence. 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.

Pasture spraying and Field & crop spraying are different jobs. Ask which property they treat, and ask for the Kansas pesticide business license. An airplane or drone covers rough property a ground rig cannot.

Pasture spraying

This is weeds and brush on grass: pasture and rangeland. It is a poor match for a pasture already full of big cedar.

Pasture spraying contractors.

Field & crop spraying

This is application on crop fields and row crops. It is routine farm work, not a ranch-pasture job.

Field & crop 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. A contractor can claim, correct, or remove a listing. Listing and verifying your business is free.