Ag Drone Services in Nacogdoches County, Texas for Hay and Pasture

Ag drone service rates in Nacogdoches County, TX

Ag drone services in Nacogdoches County, TX are priced per treated acre for the application, with product and fertilizer billed separately or supplied by you. These 2026 starting points are for FAA Part 137-certified, state-licensed operators who work the county's bermudagrass hay, bahiagrass pastures and ponds.

Service	Typical rate	Notes
Hay meadow broadleaf control	from $13/acre	Horsenettle, ragweed, croton
Pasture brush and fence line passes	from $16/acre	Sweetgum and tallow sprouts, blackberry
Dry fertilizer or seed broadcasting	from $12/acre	Product billed separately
Armyworm and grasshopper control	from $12/acre	Bermudagrass hay
Pond and lake weed treatment	from $42/acre	Per surface acre, aquatic label

Quotes move with how scattered your fields are, pine edges and power lines, carrier volume and whether a pond or lake borders the field. Many crews set a 15-acre minimum or a flat trip charge for small places near town.

Bermudagrass hay on poultry litter

Nacogdoches County is one of the busiest broiler-producing counties in Texas, and much of its pasture and hay ground is fertilized with poultry litter from those farms. Litter builds fertility fast, which grows heavy bermudagrass, but it also feeds weeds and brings in weed seed. Typical drone work on litter-fed Nacogdoches County hay ground:

• Broadleaf weeds in hay. Horsenettle, ragweed, croton and pigweed come up fast in rich, open stands after cutting.
• Fall armyworm. Lush, well-fed bermudagrass is exactly what armyworms prefer in late summer.
• Grass weeds. Crabgrass and sandbur in thin stands that need overseeding or a fertility plan.
• Spreading fertilizer or lime on rough ground. Drones broadcast dry product on hillsides and wet bottoms where a spreader truck cannot go.

Weed and pest calendar for East Texas hay meadows

Window	Targets	Notes
March–April	Buttercup, clovers gone weedy, thistle	Before bloom, on dormant to greening bermudagrass
May–June	Horsenettle, ragweed, blackberry	After first cutting, on regrowth
July–September	Fall armyworm, grasshoppers, croton	Scout weekly; treat at threshold
September–October	Young brush sprouts, tallow	Full leaf, before leaf drop

Spraying regrowth a week or two after cutting gives the best coverage on weeds and keeps the next cutting clean.

Pine edges, creek bottoms and red hills

Fields in Nacogdoches County are carved out of pine and hardwood timber, so most have wooded edges on several sides. Creek bottoms along the Angelina River, Attoyac Bayou and Loco Creek stay wet much of the spring, and the red sandy hills drain fast but are steep in places. Drones help on all three: they follow tree lines exactly, fly over saturated bottoms, and hold a steady height on slopes without the risk of a tractor on a side hill.

When a drone beats the tractor sprayer

The county has about 1,000 farms averaging around 200 acres, but only about 25,000 acres are harvested as crops; the rest is mostly pasture, hay and timber. That makes most Nacogdoches County spraying a grassland job, and grass ground in East Texas has its own problems for tractors:

• Soft sod after rain. Bermudagrass and bahiagrass meadows rut easily in spring, and ruts make the next cutting rough on equipment.
• Hidden stumps and terraces. Old timber ground still hides stumps and washes that can damage a boom.
• Small, scattered fields. A crew can treat several 20- to 60-acre meadows on different farms in one morning.
• Spot work. Blackberry patches, tallow sprouts and fence lines are treated as small polygons, not whole fields.

For a typical Nacogdoches County hay producer, that means the weed pass happens on schedule after each cutting instead of waiting for the ground to dry.

Lake Nacogdoches, Sam Rayburn and farm ponds

With Lake Nacogdoches west of town, the upper reach of Sam Rayburn Reservoir on the southern edge and stock ponds on most farms, water is part of almost every job. Operators map label setbacks around every pond and creek, use coarse droplets near water, and pause when wind blows toward it. Ponds themselves can be treated for duckweed, watermeal, algae and cattails, but only with aquatic-labeled products and an applicator licensed for aquatic sites.

Texas license pairing for drone work

Hiring a drone applicator for Nacogdoches County work means checking two layers of approvals:

1. FAA Part 137 agricultural aircraft operator certificate, Part 107 pilot certificates and a Section 44807 exemption for aircraft of 55 lb or more.
2. Texas Department of Agriculture license with Category 9 (aerial), which must be paired with the category for the land being treated, such as 1C for pasture and rangeland.
3. Separate site categories for timber or aquatic work when the job includes pine stands or ponds.
4. Insurance and complete application records, which Texas requires applicators to keep for each job.

The product label must also allow aerial application.

Serving Nacogdoches, Garrison, Cushing and Chireno

Requests come from Nacogdoches and Appleby in the center of the county, Garrison and Cushing to the north, Chireno and Martinsville to the east, Douglass to the west, and Woden and Etoile to the south. Crews also cover nearby Angelina, Rusk, Shelby, San Augustine and Cherokee counties, and they regularly group several small hay and pasture jobs into one route to keep trip charges down.