Drone Spraying in Maury County, Tennessee for Grain, Hay and Pasture

Drone spraying prices in Maury County, TN

Drone spraying in Maury County is quoted per acre for application only; the chemical or seed is billed separately or supplied by the grower. Directory listings put Tennessee drone work at $9–20 per acre, with $12 the most common 2026 rate. Our starting rates sit at or just above that figure:

Service	Typical rate
Herbicide on soybeans, corn or wheat	from $12/acre
Pasture and hayfield herbicide	from $13/acre
Corn or soybean fungicide	from $13/acre
Insecticide (stink bugs, armyworm, aphids)	from $13/acre
Cover crop or clover seeding	from $15/acre

What changes the price: acres flown per visit, the label's gallons per acre, terrain, tree lines and power lines, and travel. Each visit carries a $190 minimum, so it pays to group a hayfield with a bean field or a neighbor's job on the same day.

Maury County farming at a glance

The 2022 Census of Agriculture counted 1,442 farms on 209,805 acres, averaging 145 acres per farm, with $50.5 million in sales. Crops brought in 55% of that, and Maury ranks fifth in Tennessee for hay and other crops.

Land use (2022)	Acres
Harvested cropland	67,118
Hay and haylage	35,885
Soybeans	16,387
Corn	9,922
Wheat	4,133
Pasture	74,497

The county also carried 38,692 head of cattle. Four in ten farms are 10–49 acres, and many fields sit between new subdivisions around Spring Hill and Columbia, which makes careful, low-drift application a daily concern.

Row-crop passes in the Duck River bottoms

The best grain ground in Maury County lies in the Duck River bottoms and the limestone uplands around Columbia and Culleoka. Those fields bring three recurring drone jobs.

1. Wheat at heading. Fusarium head blight fungicide in late April or May, applied at early flowering without tramlines through the crop.
2. Corn at tassel. Gray leaf spot and southern rust fungicide at VT–R1, when corn is too tall for most sprayers and bottoms may still be soft.
3. Soybeans at R3. Fungicide for frogeye leaf spot, often with an insecticide for stink bugs or loopers in double-crop beans after wheat.

A spring flood on the Duck River can delay planting by weeks, and late-planted corn is the most exposed to southern rust. A drone lets growers protect those fields on time, even when the ground would not carry a tractor.

Hay and pasture: the biggest acreage

Hay and pasture cover far more Maury County ground than row crops, and most weed problems there follow the season:

• Winter annuals such as buttercup, henbit and poison hemlock, best treated from November to early March while small.
• Thistles in spring, before the bolting stage.
• Horsenettle, ironweed and pigweed in early summer.
• Johnsongrass and brush resprouts along fencerows in late summer.

Late-summer fall armyworm outbreaks can strip bermudagrass after a cutting. A drone treats the regrowth quickly without driving over the stand, and it can also seed clover into thin fescue in late winter to restore legumes after a broadleaf program.

Spraying where farms meet subdivisions

Maury County is one of the faster-growing counties in Middle Tennessee, with new housing spreading south from Spring Hill and around Columbia. Many hayfields and bean fields now border backyards, gardens, schools and horse lots. That raises the bar for every application:

• homes, gardens, playgrounds and beehives are mapped as no-spray zones,
• swaths stop short on the downwind edge, with coarser droplets near houses,
• flights are timed for calm mornings and away from school arrival times,
• operators check FieldWatch for registered specialty crops and apiaries before the job.

Drones help here because they fly low, apply precisely to the mapped boundary and need no ground access through a neighbor's property.

Maury County spray calendar

Months	Job
November–March	Winter annual weeds in pasture and hay; clover seeding in February
April–May	Wheat head scab fungicide; burndown before soybeans
June	Post-emerge herbicide; thistle and horsenettle in pasture
July	Corn fungicide at tassel; armyworm watch in hay
August–September	Soybean R3 fungicide and insecticide; johnsongrass and brush
September–October	Cereal rye or wheat cover seeding after harvest

How a Maury County drone job runs

1. Request. Send the field location, crop or pasture type, growth stage, acres and whether you will supply the product.
2. Field review. The operator checks boundaries, power lines, barns, houses and water on imagery and flags anything sensitive.
3. Scheduling. The flight is set for a calm window, usually early morning, with rain and temperature checked against the label.
4. Application. An RTK flight plan keeps swaths even; tanks and batteries are swapped from a trailer at the field edge.
5. Records. You receive the as-flown map with product, rate and weather details for your files.

Tennessee rules for drone applicators

Every crew we connect you with is an FAA Part 137-certified, state-licensed operation. Federal rules require a Part 107 remote pilot certificate, a Part 137 agricultural aircraft operator certificate and, for drones over 55 pounds, a Section 44807 exemption. In Tennessee, the Department of Agriculture licenses aerial applicators: drone operators need commercial certification in the aerial category plus the agricultural category, an aerial license, liability insurance and a decal on each aircraft. Ask for the license number before the job is scheduled.