Ag Drone Services in Bastrop County, Texas – Pasture, Hay & Pecans

Ag drone services pricing in Bastrop County

Ag drone services in Bastrop County, Texas are billed per treated acre, application only. Operators that cover the county advertise from $12 to $15 per acre as an entry rate, and Texas pasture and rangeland work usually runs $14 to $25. The starting rates below come from FAA Part 137-certified, state-licensed operators serving Bastrop, Elgin, Smithville, Cedar Creek, McDade and Paige.

Service	Typical rate	Notes
Pasture broadleaf weed control	from $13/acre	Improved bermudagrass and bahiagrass
Hay meadow insecticide	from $12/acre	Fall armyworm, grasshoppers
Mesquite, huisache & brush spray	from $23/acre	Higher volume, priced on mapped brush
Pecan orchard fungicide & insecticide	from $22/acre	Scab, casebearer, aphids
Pasture & food plot seeding	from $15/acre	Seed billed separately

Price factors: total acres, gallons per acre on the label, canopy height (pecans need the most water), tree lines, and how far apart your tracts are. Most operators set a 20–30 acre minimum or a flat visit charge near $350 for small places. Product can come from your feed store or be supplied by the operator at an agreed price.

Hay and pasture programs in Bastrop County

The USDA 2022 Census of Agriculture counts 1,871 farms on 263,123 acres in Bastrop County. Pasture covers about 161,000 of those acres, hay about 15,700, and the county runs close to 47,000 head of cattle. Average farm size is only 141 acres, so most jobs are a few small pastures and hay meadows rather than one large block.

Window	Target	Why a drone helps
February – April	Winter and spring broadleaf weeds	Treat before weeds compete with green-up
April – June	Huisache and mesquite regrowth	Leaf spray on scattered brush only
May – October	Fall armyworm in bermudagrass hay	Same-week response, no ruts on regrowth
Summer	Grasshoppers along fence lines	Perimeter strips instead of whole fields
Sept – October	Cool-season food plots and overseeding	Broadcast seed without tillage traffic

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension in Bastrop County issues armyworm and weed updates through the season, and operators follow those alerts and the label.

Sod farms and improved grass

Bastrop County also grows about 1,600 acres of sod, along with improved bermudagrass and bahiagrass pastures on the sandy soils east of the Colorado River. These fields need clean, even herbicide passes without tire marks on the turf, which a drone delivers on a mapped grid. Sod and hay growers in Bastrop County often combine a weed pass with a foliar nutrient in the same visit when the labels allow it.

Pecan orchard spraying

Pecans are the county's largest specialty crop by far, with about 4,900 acres of orchard, many of them along the Colorado River bottoms. Ground airblast rigs struggle on wet orchard floors, and older trees are tall. Drones are used for:

• pecan scab fungicide in wet springs, from bud break through nut sizing;
• pecan nut casebearer insecticide, timed to the first-generation egg lay in May;
• aphid and pecan weevil passes later in summer;
• foliar zinc on young trees.

Coverage on large, mature trees depends on spray volume and passes, so operators often recommend a drone for young and mid-size orchards and for wet weeks when ground rigs cannot enter.

How hiring an ag drone operator works

1. Share the property: location, acres, pasture, hay or orchard, and the weed, brush or pest you want treated.
2. Map review: the operator outlines the area on satellite imagery and marks homes, power lines, ponds, creeks and tree lines.
3. Scheduling: flights are booked for calm, rain-free conditions that fit the label.
4. Flight and record: RTK-guided passes are flown, and you receive treated acres, product, rate and weather data.

Small tracts and Austin-area neighbors

Bastrop County has grown quickly as Austin spreads east, and many ag-exempt tracts now sit beside new homes along SH 71, SH 21 and US 290. Drone application helps on these places: a 20-acre hay meadow or horse pasture can be sprayed with mapped buffers to the property line, low flight height and coarse droplets keep drift down, and there is no large rig on the county road. Neighbors along the same road can book together to share the trip charge and reach the job minimum.

Lost Pines habitat and protected species

Parts of Bastrop County, especially around the Lost Pines and Bastrop State Park, are habitat for the federally endangered Houston toad. Some pesticide labels now point to EPA Bulletins Live! Two, which can add buffers or timing limits for protected species in specific areas. Licensed operators check the bulletin for your location before each job, keep mapped buffers from ponds and wet sandy areas, and adjust the product or timing if a limit applies. Bastrop County landowners near the state park, Lake Bastrop or the Colorado River should mention it when requesting a quote, so the check and the buffers are planned before the flight day rather than on site.

Texas licensing for drone application

Every operator holds an FAA Part 107 remote pilot certificate and a Part 137 agricultural aircraft operator certificate, plus a Section 44807 exemption for drones over 55 lbs. Applying pesticides for hire in Texas requires a commercial applicator license from the Texas Department of Agriculture with the aerial application category. The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension office in Bastrop is the local source for weed identification, forage testing and applicator training.