Ag Drone Spraying Services in Daviess County, Indiana

Drone spraying prices in Daviess County, IN

Drone spraying in Daviess County, IN is billed per acre, per pass, with the crop protection product priced separately. The rates below are what growers around Washington, Odon and Elnora can expect when a request is matched with an FAA Part 137-certified, state-licensed operator working the county this season.

Service	Typical rate	Notes
Corn and soybean fungicide	from $12/acre	2 GPA; corn at VT–R1, soybeans at R3
Herbicide and burndown	from $13/acre	2–3 GPA depending on product label
Insecticide (aphids, beetles, alfalfa weevil)	from $12/acre	Often tank-mixed with a fungicide pass
Cover crop seeding into standing crops	from $15/acre	Cereal rye, wheat, oats, radish blends
Pasture and hay field weed control	from $14/acre	Thistle, multiflora rose, broadleaf weeds

Four things move the final quote: spray volume (each extra gallon per acre adds flight time and refills), field shape and obstacles, the drive from the operator's base, and how many acres can be flown in one trip. Jobs under 40 acres usually carry a flat setup charge, so grouping neighboring fields near Montgomery, Cannelburg or Plainville into one visit keeps the per-acre cost close to the table.

How agricultural drone spraying in Daviess County works

1. Send the field details. Crop, growth stage, approximate acres, the product you plan to use and your preferred window.
2. Get matched and quoted. A licensed operator who already covers Daviess County reviews the request and replies with a per-acre price and an available date.
3. Field plan. The pilot maps boundaries, waterways, power lines, tree lines and no-spray buffers before the first flight.
4. Application. RTK-guided passes at the label rate, timed around wind, temperature inversions and rain.
5. Records. You receive an as-applied map and the application record: product, rate, acres, date, time and weather.

Drone crop spraying programs for Daviess County farms

Fungicide passes on corn and soybeans

This is the most requested job in the county. A drone reaches tasseling corn and late-season soybeans without wheel tracks, which matters when a ground rig would knock down rows at canopy height. Purdue's field crop pathology team lists gray leaf spot, northern corn leaf blight and tar spot as the corn diseases most often managed with fungicide in Indiana, and frogeye leaf spot as the main soybean target from R1 to R5.

Herbicide and burndown

Spring burndown on no-till ground and post-emergence passes for waterhemp, marestail and giant ragweed. Drones also handle spot treatment of weed patches, grassed waterways and field edges where a full boom pass wastes product.

Insecticide and tank mixes

Soybean aphid, stink bugs, Japanese beetle in corn silks and alfalfa weevil between cuttings. When timing lines up, an insecticide rides along with the fungicide pass so the field is flown once.

Cover crop seeding

Broadcasting cereal rye, wheat or radish into standing corn and soybeans in late summer gives the cover crop several extra weeks of growth before harvest. It is one of the fastest-growing drone uses among southwest Indiana growers.

Drone vs. ground rig vs. manned aircraft

Factor	Spray drone	Ground rig	Airplane or helicopter
Soil compaction and crop damage	None	Wheel tracks, rutting on wet soil	None
Wet ground after heavy rain	Flies on schedule	Often waits days	Flies, but booking is tight in July
Tall corn at tassel	Above canopy	Needs high-clearance sprayer	Above canopy
Small or irregular fields	Efficient	Slow turns, overlap	Costly per acre
Edges near homes, creeks, woodlots	Tight, low-height control	Good	Wider buffers needed
Water volume	2–3 GPA	10–20 GPA	2–5 GPA

For the typical Daviess County farm the drone fills a gap: fields too small or too wet for a ground rig at the right moment, and too small to justify a fixed-wing booking.

Daviess County crops and field conditions

According to the USDA Census of Agriculture 2022, Daviess County has 1,140 farm operations on 186,607 acres of farmland, with an average farm size of 164 acres. Corn leads at 73,869 acres, followed by soybeans at 61,689 acres, alfalfa and hay at 2,358 acres and wheat at 1,442 acres.

That average farm size is far smaller than in many Corn Belt counties, and it shapes how spraying gets done here:

• Smaller, broken-up fields. Eastern Daviess County, from Alfordsville through Cannelburg and Montgomery to Odon, has many family farms with fence rows, woodlots and odd-shaped parcels where a drone turns faster and overlaps less than a boom.
• River bottoms. Ground along the West Fork and East Fork of the White River stays wet long after a storm, exactly when fungicide timing is critical.
• Rolling ground. The county's terrain is hilly in places; drones follow the slope with terrain sensing instead of bouncing a boom across it.
• Hay and pasture. With more than 200 farms reporting alfalfa and hay, weed control on pasture and hay ground is a steady off-peak job.

Disease pressure is a real reason to plan ahead. Tar spot has been detected in all 92 Indiana counties, and southern rust has been confirmed in neighboring Knox and Dubois counties in recent seasons, so many Daviess County growers book a VT–R1 fungicide window before corn tassels.

Southwest Indiana drone spray calendar

Window	Crop	Typical drone pass
Late March – April	No-till fields	Burndown herbicide
April – May	Alfalfa	Alfalfa weevil insecticide
May	Wheat	Heading fungicide for Fusarium head blight
June	Corn, soybeans	Post-emergence herbicide, waterhemp and marestail
Mid-July – early August	Corn	VT–R1 fungicide for tar spot, gray leaf spot, southern rust
Late July – August	Soybeans	R3 fungicide and insecticide
Late August – September	Standing corn and soybeans	Cover crop seeding
October – November	Pasture, stubble	Fall herbicide for marestail and perennial weeds

Southern Indiana runs roughly one to two weeks ahead of the north, so the July corn fungicide window opens early in Daviess County. Booking two to three weeks ahead of the target stage gives the operator time to sequence nearby fields.

Licensing for drone application in Indiana

Every operator in the network flying in Daviess County must hold:

• FAA Part 107 remote pilot certificate for the person at the controls.
• FAA Part 137 agricultural aircraft operator certificate for the business, plus a Section 44807 exemption for spray drones over 55 lbs.
• Office of Indiana State Chemist (OISC) license with the Core exam and Category 11 – Aerial Application. In Indiana the person operating the drone controls must be the licensed applicator, and for-hire businesses also need an OISC pesticide business license.
• OISC fertilizer applicator license when the job involves commercial fertilizer.
• Liability insurance that covers custom aerial application.

Ask for these credentials before any product goes in the tank. The pesticide label is the law: rate, buffer and re-entry rules apply to drones just as they do to any aerial application.