This event gave the whole family an opportunity to learn more about Permans became frequent attendees of South Dakota’s Rangeland Days in the early 1990s. They built their first cross-fences in 1985.Īttending Holistic Resource Management workshops also helped Permans develop livestock and land management practices that were sustainable, helped to conserve water, reduce erosion, and rebuild the native prairie ecosystems that had been lost to farming of marginal soils and set stocking or seasonal grazing.

Rotational grazing was not a common practice in the early 1980s, but Permans heard about the concept at workshops sponsored by the Extension Service. “The way we were doing it wasn’t working.” “When you’re young you want to try something different,” Lyle said. He and Garnet met while attending SDSU in Brookings, SD. His family roots run deep in the area all four sets of his great-grandparents homesteaded within thirty miles of Rock Hills Ranch. Lyle grew up just a few miles east of the ranch near Lowry. Questions such as: ‘How does it impact our ecosystem?’ ‘How does it impact our quality of life?’ and ‘Is it profitable?’ drive the decision-making process. These decades have seen their share of changes to the management practices utilized on the ranch. Lyle and Garnet Perman have called Rock Hills Ranch home for over forty years and put down deep roots, both figuratively and literally. Homesteaded by the Gottlieb Holzwarth family in 1906, the place has seen over a century of agricultural production. The contours of the hilly landscape strewn with granite boulders were shaped by the last glacier that melted, carving out the drainage of Swan Creek as it meets the Missouri River in Walworth County, South Dakota. Rock Hills Ranch is as old as the hills: literally.

Rock Hills Ranch focuses on holistic management to make the most of today, and prepare for tomorrow.

Cattle range management