ripping out sagebrush to make wheat ground?

Talked with a guy today who jokingly said he'd rent me 20 acres. Probably nothing will come of it but it raised a mental question for me.
A fair amount of ground around here is nice on one side of the fence and covered in sagebrush on the other. Only difference is one piece is farmed, one piece is not. Could be that the non farmed is too shallow/rocky but...
Anyone ever ripped out sagebrush to make farmland. If so any suggestions?

Sorry I can't help with that, I'm in sw indiana, but I have a similar situation. I live in a hilly area and there are a lot of 5 to 20 acre or more patches that used to be farmed in the old days but are now passed over for the most part. I just cleared a bunch of smaller thorn trees that grew up in a ten acre patch that a guy used to run cattle on after they quit row crop farming it 30 years ago. It has not been used in like 10 years or so. Soil is decent for the area. It is still a little rough and I would prefer to no till but I really need to plow the sod under after a good burn down. I am aiming for 100 bu corn.

Anyway I talked to a guy about another patch almost fifty acres and it looked promising from a distance but it was basically rock under an inch if soil. Part of the old gypsum mine that never panned out on account of the water table too high.

I think you should walk it with a probe and see what it is like before doing too much work. There might be a reason no one is farming it, especially with the high grain prices over the last few years. Then again it might have been passed up as too small to raise a fuss about in our day of big ag. I would definitely check it out , it may be really nice. I hope so , good luck!

Sounds like you and I are in similar situations. The land available is because the big guys don't want to mess with it. Some is good ground, most has been left because its not. ALL of it is inefficient in one way or another (location, access, landowner's tacked on extras/groundskeeper tasks, needs extra hours to get back to farmable etc.)
I probably will not do anything with the sagebrush but was curious if there was a method to tear it out that didn't ruin equipment and take tons of hours.

I did a few acres years ago, used a cat dozer. Still had stubs and debris left over, then bush hogged what was left. That stuff is pretty tough and then you have huge piles of brush that does not decompose quickly. Still pickin rocks.
My advice...use BIG equipment and multiple passes with different implements.
Orrr...fergetaboutit !!