Ag Drone Services in Leon County, TX for Hay Meadows and Pasture

Ag drone service prices in Leon County

Ag drone services in Leon County, TX are billed per acre, per pass, application only. Operators listed for the county start at about $12–15 per acre, often with 20- to 30-acre minimums, and Texas typical is about $12. Our rates:

Service	Typical rate	Notes
Pasture broadleaf weeds	from $12/acre	Spring and fall
Hay meadow weeds	from $12/acre	Bermudagrass, between cuttings
Fall armyworm in hay	from $12/acre	At threshold
Brush and fence rows	from $17/acre	Spot and patch work
Pasture overseeding	from $14/acre	Seed billed separately

Fields under 20 acres are billed as 20 acres, and neighbors can share a trip. Product is billed separately. Quotes reflect poultry houses, creeks and ponds nearby, brush density and the spray volume on the label.

Ninth in Texas for poultry

Leon County had 1,597 farms on 423,117 acres in the 2022 Census of Agriculture, with sales up 38% to $233.5 million, 26th in Texas. Livestock and poultry brought in 96%.

Land or livestock	2022
Pasture	244,815 acres
Woodland	103,548 acres
Hay and forage	36,064 acres
Broilers	6.28 million
Cattle	87,738 head
Horses	1,575 head

Poultry and egg sales of $169.6 million ranked ninth in Texas, and cattle sales ranked 39th. Crops brought in only 4%, so ag drone services in Leon County mean hay meadows and pasture between poultry houses. The county also grows a few peaches and pecans, and only 4% of farms plant cover crops.

Small and mid-size places

About 34% of farms run 10–49 acres and 35% run 50–179 acres; only 61 top 1,000 acres. Fewer than 1,000 acres are irrigated. Neighbors along the same county road often group their hay meadows into one trip.

Spraying around poultry houses

With more than six million broilers in the county, poultry houses sit beside hay ground on many places. Operators map houses, fans and air intakes as no-spray zones, fly only with wind blowing away from them, and follow the grower's biosecurity rules on entry. Pastures fertilized with litter grow weeds as fast as grass, which makes timely passes worth it.

Fall armyworm in hay

AgriLife reports that fall armyworm activity in Texas forage usually climbs from July through September, often after big rains. Eggs hatch in two to three days and larvae reach about an inch and a half, so AgriLife advises scouting in the morning and treating at threshold, warning that the next day can be too late. A drone can be on a hay meadow quickly once counts jump.

Trinity, Navasota and post oak soils

The Trinity River forms the county's east line and drains about two-thirds of it, and the Navasota forms the west line, with Boggy, Keechi, Clear and Birch creeks between. Post Oak Savannah soils are loamy or sandy over mottled clay, and only 1–10% of the county is prime farmland. Rain averages about 40 inches over a growing season of about 270 days. Operators map rivers, creeks and stock ponds as no-spray zones.

Cow-calf, oil and timber

Leon was among Texas's leading cow-calf counties in the early 1990s. Oil was found in 1936, with about 134 million barrels produced through 2004, and the county still harvests pine and hardwood. Wooded edges and pipeline rights-of-way cut many pastures into odd shapes that a drone flies along mapped boundaries. In 2003 the county harvested about 1.7 million cubic feet of pine and 1 million of hardwood. The Jewett lignite mine, which fed NRG's Limestone power plant from about 1985 to 2016, has about 5,590 acres fully reclaimed, seeded to bermudagrass in spring, millet in summer and ryegrass in fall.

Fort Boggy State Park

Fort Boggy State Park covers 1,847 acres of woodland, meadow and wetland between Leona and Centerville, with 15-acre Sullivan Lake; the land was donated in 1985 and the park opened in 2001. It is mapped as a no-spray zone with buffers on neighboring fields.

Local help

The AgriLife Extension office in Centerville runs a 2026 feral hog abatement program and a hay show, and publishes guides on bermudagrass forage, johnsongrass, broomweed and grassy weeds in hay meadows. The Bedias Creek Soil and Water Conservation District and the Mid-East Texas Groundwater Conservation District also serve county landowners.

Field conditions

Field condition	Ground sprayer	Spray drone
Wet hay meadows after rain	Ruts	No soil contact
Pastures beside poultry houses	Drift concerns	Mapped buffers
Odd-shaped fields along woods	Missed corners	Mapped edges
Creek bottoms	Hard access	Follows terrain

A Leon County spray year

Window	Typical drone work
February to March	Winter broadleaf weeds in pasture
April to May	Pasture and hay meadow weeds
July to September	Fall armyworm scouting and treatment
Fall	Broomweed, brush on fence rows

Licensing and county rules

Drone applicators need a Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) commercial applicator license, and the business holds an FAA Part 137 certificate with Part 107 pilots. Leon County is not a regulated-herbicide county, but neighboring Robertson County requires permits west of State Highway 6 from April 1 to September 15, so crews check rules on jobs across that line.