Crop Spraying by Drone in Montgomery County, Kansas

Crop spraying rates in Montgomery County, KS

Crop spraying in Montgomery County, KS by drone is priced per treated acre for the flight and application; the product itself is a separate line or comes from your own shed. These starting rates reflect what FAA Part 137-certified, state-licensed operators charge across southeast Kansas for the 2026 season.

Service	Typical rate	Notes
Wheat fungicide (flag leaf to heading)	from $11/acre	Stripe and leaf rust
Soybean fungicide/insecticide	from $11/acre	Full-season and double-crop beans
Corn fungicide at tassel	from $12/acre	Southern rust, gray leaf spot
Pasture and sericea lespedeza herbicide	from $12/acre	Broadcast or patch-only
Farm pond weed and algae treatment	from $40/acre	Per surface acre

Final price depends on gallons per acre on the label, acres booked per trip, travel from Independence, and obstacles like oil-lease power lines and hedgerows of Osage orange. In Montgomery County, jobs under 25 acres usually ride along with a nearby booking or carry a flat trip charge.

Wheat and double-crop soybeans: the Montgomery County rotation

Soybeans lead the county at roughly 66,000 acres, followed by about 42,000 acres of wheat and 32,000 acres of corn. Many fields grow both wheat and soybeans in one year, which stacks two tight spray windows on the same ground.

Wheat in May

Stripe rust and leaf rust ride south winds out of Oklahoma most springs. A fungicide at flag leaf to early heading protects the leaves that fill the grain, and a drone can make that pass when April and May rains leave terraced fields too soft for a rig.

Double-crop beans in August

Beans drilled into wheat stubble in late June reach R3 in mid to late August, the same weeks full-season beans need attention. Typical targets:

• Frogeye leaf spot in humid, late-season canopies
• Dectes stem borer and bean leaf beetle
• Late flushes of waterhemp and Palmer amaranth in thin stands

Corn and sorghum in July

Southern rust can move fast in July, and sugarcane aphid shows up on sorghum most years. Both call for a pass over a canopy too tall for most ground equipment.

Sericea lespedeza and pasture weeds on Montgomery County grass

Sericea lespedeza is a declared noxious weed in Kansas, and landowners are required to control it. It spreads quickly through native and brome pastures in the rolling hills west of the Verdigris River, where rock outcrops and steep draws keep ground rigs out.

Target	Timing that works	Drone approach
Sericea lespedeza	June to early July (vegetative) or late August to September (flowering), by product	Patch maps, then spot passes
Ragweed and broadleaf weeds	Late spring, weeds under 6 inches	Broadcast on brome or bermudagrass
Woody sprouts on fence lines	Full leaf in early summer	Narrow swath along the edge

Spot work is where a drone pays off on Montgomery County grass: a mapping flight marks the lespedeza patches, and the spray mission treats only those polygons instead of the whole pasture.

Why drones fit the Verdigris and Elk River bottoms

The Verdigris runs south through the middle of the county and leaves Kansas at its lowest point just below Coffeyville. Bottomland along the Verdigris, Elk River and Onion Creek grows some of the best beans in the county, but it floods, drains slowly and is often bounded by timber on two or three sides.

• No ruts on wet soils. The aircraft flies over saturated ground the day after a rain.
• Clean edges. Timber and creek banks make ag-plane turns risky; drones fly the boundary exactly.
• No airstrip needed. Crews launch from a trailer on the field road.
• Small-field economics. Bottom fields of 30 to 90 acres are covered without the mobilization cost of a plane.

For Montgomery County growers farming both upland wheat and river-bottom beans, that flexibility means one crew can handle the whole farm in the same week.

Kansas rules every drone applicator must meet

Kansas adds its own layer on top of federal aviation rules, so before hiring anyone in Montgomery County ask to see each item before the first flight:

1. FAA Part 137 agricultural aircraft operator certificate, plus Part 107 pilot certificates and a Section 44807 exemption for aircraft of 55 lb or more.
2. Kansas Department of Agriculture pesticide business license for any company spraying for hire.
3. KDA approval for unmanned aircraft applications. The business submits an application with drone make, model and serial number and must receive approval from the Secretary of Agriculture before flying pesticides.
4. Certified commercial applicator at the controls, licensed in the matching category: Agricultural Plant Pest Control (1A) for crops and pasture, Aquatic Pest Control (5) for ponds, Right-of-Way (6) for lease roads and fence lines.

Every product must also permit aerial application on its label. If the label prohibits aerial use, a drone cannot apply it.

Scout first, then spray: imagery before the pass

Many Montgomery County jobs start with a short mapping flight. Multispectral or high-resolution images show where disease, insect feeding or weed patches are concentrated, so the follow-up mission can switch between broadcast and spot rates. On a 160-acre soybean field near Independence, treating only the stressed zones can cut product cost noticeably, and the same map documents the pass for your records.

Operators serving Independence, Coffeyville, Cherryvale and Caney also handle Elk City, Havana, Liberty, Dearing and Tyro, plus neighboring Wilson, Labette and Chautauqua counties.