Ag Drone Services in Lamar County, TX for Hay, Pasture and Wheat

Ag drone service prices in Lamar County

Ag drone services in Lamar County, TX are billed per acre, per pass, application only. Operators listed for the county quote about $12–15 per acre, Texas typical is about $12, and per-crop listings run $8–21. Our rates:

Service	Typical rate	Notes
Bermudagrass pasture and hay weeds	from $12/acre	Outside regulated windows
Smutgrass	from $13/acre	Late spring to early summer
Wheat herbicide or fungicide	from $12/acre	Winter and spring
Corn and soybean passes	from $12/acre	Where labeled for aerial use
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 field size, regulated-herbicide rules, water nearby and the spray volume on the label.

Hay and cattle first

Lamar County had 1,865 farms on 513,465 acres in the 2022 Census of Agriculture, averaging 275 acres, with 88,004 cattle and calves.

Crop	2022 acres
Hay and forage	79,110
Wheat	30,311
Corn for grain	16,944
Soybeans	10,735
Corn silage	8,670

AgriLife's 2024 impact report for the county put total ag receipts at $196.6 million, led by cow-calf and stockers at $88 million and hay at $48 million, ahead of soybeans, dairy, corn and wheat. Ag drone services in Lamar County are mostly pasture and hay work, with row crops in the river bottoms.

Small and mid-size farms

About 32% of farms run 10–49 acres and 35% run 50–179 acres; only 88 top 1,000 acres. AgriLife counted 2,577 farm-related jobs in the county, and dairy brought in about $10.9 million in 2024, with smaller receipts from pecans and alfalfa. Many jobs are a single hay meadow or pasture, so neighbors along the same road can share one trip.

Regulated herbicides in Lamar County

Lamar is one of 55 Texas counties with regulated-herbicide rules from the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA). In the regulated portion of Lamar County, aerial application of regulated herbicides such as 2,4-D is prohibited from April 15 through September 1. Neighboring Delta County is regulated county-wide, while Fannin and Red River are not. Operators confirm which side of the boundary every field falls on and choose non-regulated products or schedule work outside the window.

Smutgrass in bermudagrass

AgriLife recommends hexazinone at 2¾–4½ pints per acre for smutgrass, the lower rate on sandy soil and the higher on clay, applied in late spring or early summer while the weed is growing, with rain needed to move it to the roots. Keep a 100-foot buffer from desirable trees, and plan on a second treatment the next year.

Grazing and haying intervals

AgriLife's pasture guide lists haying intervals of about 30 days for 2,4-D amine and GrazonP+D and 37 days for Weedmaster, with a 7-day grazing interval for lactating dairy cattle on 2,4-D amine. Johnsongrass is best hit at seedhead formation. The cutting date decides the product before the flight is booked.

Pat Mayse Lake and Camp Maxey

Pat Mayse Lake, about 12 miles north of Paris, impounds Sanders Creek and covers 5,638 acres at conservation pool, with the 8,925-acre Pat Mayse Wildlife Management Area next to it. Camp Maxey, a Texas Army National Guard training center of about 14,400 acres near Powderly, borders the same area. Operators stay off federal and state land, keep buffers at the lake and creeks, and check airspace near the camp. The camp was a World War II infantry and prisoner-of-war camp, and about 10,000 acres of its former range became the Pat Mayse project; the lake's dam closed in 1966, and the wildlife area holds about 4,925 acres of hardwoods along Sanders Creek, Craddock Creek and Sand Branch.

Sugarcane aphid in sorghum

AgriLife set the sugarcane aphid threshold in Northeast Texas sorghum at 30–40% of plants infested, with scouting every three to four days once aphids appear. A drone gets on quickly when counts jump.

Red River and North Sulphur bottoms

The Red River forms the county's north line with Oklahoma, and floods closed the US 271 bridge in May 2015. To the south, the North Sulphur River was channelized in the late 1920s and has cut a deep channel along the Delta County line. The county, named for Texas president Mirabeau B. Lamar, covers 933 square miles, 26 of them water. When bottom fields stay wet, a drone treats them without ruts.

A Lamar County spray year

Window	Typical drone work
February to March	Wheat weeds and winter pasture broadleaves
Early April	Pasture passes before the regulated window
May to June	Smutgrass, non-regulated pasture products
Summer	Sugarcane aphid, soybean and corn passes
September to October	Fall pasture weeds after the window closes

Cox Field

Cox Field, the city airport about seven miles east of downtown Paris, has three runways, the longest at 6,002 feet. Crews check airspace and get authorization when needed for fields nearby. All work runs under an FAA Part 137 certificate with Part 107 pilots and a TDA commercial applicator license.