Drone Spraying in Hopkins County, TX for Hay Meadows and Pasture

Drone spraying prices in Hopkins County

Drone spraying in Hopkins County, TX is quoted per acre, application only. Operators serving the county list $12–15 per acre for most work, and Texas A&M AgriLife's 2026 custom rates for East Texas put aerial herbicide at $11.67 per acre, aerial insecticide or fungicide at $11.78 and brush work at $23.20. Our rates:

Service	Typical rate	Notes
Pasture and hay herbicide	from $11/acre	Winter and summer weeds
Hay insecticide	from $11/acre	Armyworm, stem maggot
Smutgrass treatment	from $12/acre	Where labeled for aerial use
Ryegrass overseeding	from $14/acre	Seed billed separately
Brush and fence rows	from $20/acre	Spot or broadcast

Fields under 25 acres are billed as 25 acres. Product is billed separately. Quotes reflect field size, tree lines, poultry houses and homes nearby and the spray volume on the label.

Poultry, dairy and cattle

Hopkins County sold $342 million in farm products in the 2022 Census of Agriculture, 21st in Texas, and 96% came from livestock.

Product or land use	2022
Poultry and eggs	$179.3 million (8th in Texas)
Milk	$76.7 million (12th in Texas)
Cattle sales	$69.1 million
Cattle	110,911 head
Broilers	8.5 million
Hay and haylage	78,597 acres

Pasture covers about half of the county's farmland, and 39% of its 1,873 farms are 10–49 acres. Drone spraying in Hopkins County is mostly hay and pasture work.

From dairy capital to broiler country

Carnation opened a plant in Sulphur Springs in 1937, and by 1990 nearly 500 dairies here produced about 17% of Texas milk. Dairies have declined since the late 1990s, while broiler houses grew, but milk still ranks 12th in the state and the Southwest Dairy Museum sits in Sulphur Springs. The hay economy grew up around those herds and still feeds them.

Winter weeds in hay meadows

AgriLife's Forage Fax lists buttercup, groundsel, red sorrel, thistles and dandelion as common winter weeds. Spray buttercup in late February to early March before bloom, groundsel as March rosettes, and thistles at the rosette stage. 2,4-D, metsulfuron, GrazonNext HL and Weedmaster are common choices. Winter passes clean up the first cutting before bermuda greens up.

Smutgrass in bermuda and bahia

AgriLife's smutgrass program uses hexazinone at 2¾–4½ pints per acre in late spring or early summer. Treated forage can be cut for hay after 38 days, and AgriLife advises staying 100 feet from trees. Not every hexazinone label allows aerial application, so the operator checks first.

Armyworm and stem maggot

• Fall armyworm: treat at two to three larvae half an inch or longer per square foot, before they pass three-quarters of an inch. Outbreaks tend to follow rain.
• Bermudagrass stem maggot: first found in Texas in neighboring Van Zandt County in 2013. Generations run about three weeks; spray after a cutting when damage is high.

Poultry litter and hay

Broiler litter from the county's poultry houses is spread on many hay meadows as fertilizer. That builds fertility but can also spread weed seed, so weed passes after green-up matter. Drones don't spread litter, but they handle the weed and insect passes on those meadows without wheel tracks on soft ground.

Rules in Delta, Hunt and Lamar counties

Hopkins County isn't on TDA's regulated-herbicide list, but neighboring Delta and Hunt counties and part of Lamar County are. There, aerial application of 2,4-D, MCPA and dicamba is prohibited from April 15 to September 1. Fields across those lines are checked before booking.

Cooper Lake and creeks

Jim Chapman (Cooper) Lake covers 19,305 acres on the South Sulphur River along the Delta County line, with the South Sulphur unit of Cooper Lake State Park near Sulphur Springs. Lake Sulphur Springs and White Oak Creek add more water. Operators map lakes, creeks, stock ponds, poultry houses and homes as no-spray zones, and check FieldWatch's DriftWatch and BeeCheck before every job.

Blackland and claypan

Field condition	Tractor sprayer	Spray drone
Blackland clay after rain	Bogs down	No soil contact
Claypan pastures in the southeast	Ruts, standing water	No soil contact
Hay close to cutting	Crushes the stand	No crop contact
Pastures between woods	Missed corners	Mapped edges

Ryegrass overseeding for winter grazing

Many Hopkins County dairy and cow-calf operations overseed annual ryegrass into bermuda or bahia in fall for winter and spring grazing. A drone broadcasts seed into standing sod in October without disking or driving on wet ground, and it can follow with a nitrogen pass once the ryegrass is up. Keep in mind that winter weed passes in February have to use products safe for the ryegrass stand.

A Hopkins County spray year

Window	Typical drone work
Late February to March	Buttercup, groundsel, thistle rosettes
May to June	Smutgrass, summer broadleaves
June to September	Stem maggot after cutting
Late summer to fall	Fall armyworm
October	Ryegrass overseeding

Texas licensing and airspace

The Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) requires a Commercial Applicator license with Category 9 (Aerial) plus a use category such as Pasture and Rangeland. Sulphur Springs Municipal Airport has Class E airspace starting at 700 feet. The FAA requires Part 107, Part 137 and a Section 44807 exemption for drones of 55 pounds or more.