Ag Drone Spraying in Lee County, TX for Pasture, Hay and Yaupon

Ag drone spraying prices in Lee County

Ag drone spraying in Lee County, TX is billed per acre, per pass, application only. The nearest operators listed for the county quote from $12 to $15 per acre, one with a 30-acre minimum, and Texas typical is about $12. Our rates:

Service	Typical rate	Notes
Pasture broadleaf weeds	from $12/acre	Spring and fall
Bermudagrass hay weeds	from $12/acre	Grassy and broadleaf
Yaupon and redcedar patches	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 brush density, ponds and creeks nearby, toad habitat and the spray volume on the label.

Cattle on post oak pasture

Lee County had 1,720 farms on 341,764 acres in the 2022 Census of Agriculture, averaging 199 acres, with sales up 57% to $89.2 million. Livestock brought in 83%.

Land or livestock	2022
Pasture	232,762 acres
Woodland	51,249 acres
Cropland	47,350 acres
Hay and forage	27,355 acres
Cattle and calves	91,280 head

The county ranked 27th in Texas for cattle. About 70% of farms run between 10 and 179 acres, and only 51 top 1,000 acres. Ag drone spraying in Lee County is pasture, hay meadows and brush, not row crops.

Claypan savannah soils

NRCS classes much of the county as Claypan Savannah: 6–15 inches of fine sandy loam over a dense, very slowly permeable clay subsoil. Fields stay wet in winter and turn droughty in summer, with about 40 inches of rain a year peaking in May–June and September–October. Without fire or brush control, yaupon, eastern redcedar, winged elm, persimmon and mesquite spread under the post oak and blackjack oak. Wet claypan pastures rut under a sprayer truck; a drone never touches them.

Yaupon control

AgriLife forage specialists recommend cut-stump treatment with 15% triclopyr ester in diesel, or a 25/75 basal bark mix for standing stems, and warn against treating in high heat near desirable trees because of volatility. Research in the Texas Post Oak Savannah has paired fire with herbicides for yaupon thickets. Drones handle the broadcast pasture work around those stands and spot passes on regrowth.

Houston toad habitat

The federally endangered Houston toad lives in Lee County, one of nine counties in its current range, on deep loose sand in post oak savannah with ponds that hold water at least 30 days. It breeds from January to mid-May. TPWD lists pesticides, fire ants and converting native grass to bermudagrass among threats, and notes that chemicals can be used successfully with guidance. On sandy ground, operators map ponds and wooded edges as no-spray zones and schedule pond-side work outside breeding season.

Grassy weeds in bermudagrass hay

AgriLife's 2026 forage guidance names crabgrass, johnsongrass, goosegrass, barnyardgrass and fall panicum as the main grassy weeds in bermudagrass hay. Pre-emergent options include indaziflam and pendimethalin, with quinclorac or nicosulfuron post-emergence. The haying interval on the label decides the pass date.

Yegua Creek and Somerville Lake

Middle Yegua Creek runs 53 miles through Williamson and Lee counties and joins East Yegua near Dime Box, forming Yegua Creek just west of Somerville Lake. The 11,456-acre lake, impounded in 1967 by the Army Corps of Engineers, reaches into the county. Operators map creeks, the lake and stock ponds as no-spray zones.

Groundwater and the Lost Pines district

The Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District covers exactly Bastrop and Lee counties, drawing on the Simsboro and Carrizo aquifers, while Giddings uses Queen City Sand. Mining has been the county's largest water use, and livestock about 1,500 acre-feet a year. Low-volume passes use a fraction of the water a ground rig needs.

Wendish heritage in Serbin

About 550 Sorbian Lutherans came to Texas in 1854 under Pastor John Kilian and settled at Serbin, where St. Paul Lutheran Church was built in 1871. The Texas Wendish Heritage Museum on the church grounds holds a festival every fourth Sunday of September. Lexington's cattle auction runs every Saturday.

Oil, seed and greenhouses in Giddings

The Austin Chalk oil boom of the early 1980s brought about 300 oil businesses to Giddings before it collapsed later that decade. Today Altman Plants runs about 70 acres of greenhouses there, and the Giddings Seed Laboratory is another major employer. Greenhouses and nurseries near pasture get mapped buffers. The county, founded in 1874, covers 634 square miles and had 17,478 residents in 2020.

A Lee County spray year

Window	Typical drone work
February to March	Winter broadleaf weeds in pasture
April to May	Pasture weeds, hay pre-emergent
June to August	Grassy weeds in hay between cuttings
Fall	Yaupon and redcedar regrowth, fall broadleaves

Licensing and airspace

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. Lee County is not a regulated-herbicide county, but neighboring Milam and Burleson are, so crews check rules on jobs near those lines. Giddings–Lee County Airport sits three miles west of town with a 4,000-foot runway.