Drone Spraying in Larimer County, CO for Hay, Wheat and Small Acreages

Drone spraying prices in Larimer County

Drone spraying in Larimer County, CO is billed per acre, per pass, application only. Operators listed for the county quote $8–18 per acre, with $12 typical in Colorado in 2026. CSU's 2025 custom rates put eastern Colorado ground boom spraying at a $12 median and liquid fertilizer at $14. Aerial spraying in eastern Colorado had a median of $8.25 and western Colorado $14. Our rates:

Service	Typical rate	Notes
Wheat and corn herbicide	from $11/acre	Where labeled for aerial use
Alfalfa insecticide	from $12/acre	Between cuttings
Liquid fertilizer	from $13/acre	Hay, corn, small grains
Noxious weeds on acreages	from $14/acre	Thistles, knapweed, toadflax
Pasture reseeding	from $14/acre	Seed billed separately

Fields under 10 acres are billed as 10 acres, and neighbors can share a trip. Product is billed separately. Quotes reflect field size, homes nearby, ditches and the spray volume on the label.

Dairy, hay and horses

Larimer County had 1,620 farms on 467,157 acres in the 2022 Census of Agriculture, with sales up 80% to $270.6 million, seventh in Colorado. Livestock brought in 65%.

Crop or livestock	2022
Hay and haylage	34,084 acres
Wheat	9,071 acres
Corn silage	6,879 acres
Corn for grain	4,847 acres
Cattle	73,026 head
Horses	4,367 head

The county ranked third in Colorado for milk, and second for both horses and nursery, greenhouse and sod. About 67,600 acres are irrigated. The county covers 2,634 square miles and had about 359,000 residents in 2020, so farms share the plains with fast-growing towns.

Two-thirds of farms under 50 acres

Of Larimer County's 1,620 farms, 305 run 1–9 acres and 785 run 10–49, and half sell less than $2,500 a year. CSU Extension and NRCS run a Small Acreage Management program with $75 site visits covering weeds, grazing, reseeding and irrigation. Drone spraying in Larimer County often means a few acres of thistle or knapweed on a horse property, done without driving a sprayer across soft pasture.

County weed rules and timing

The Larimer County Weed District enforces the Colorado Noxious Weed Act in unincorporated areas. Its 2023 plan requires eradicating all List A species, such as myrtle spurge, cypress spurge and yellow starthistle, and containing abundant List B species, and the county acts against landowners who don't comply. Timing from its reference guide:

Weed	Best window
Myrtle spurge	April to May
Musk thistle, spotted knapweed	Spring rosettes
Yellow toadflax	Mid-summer, at flowering
Dalmatian toadflax	Early spring or fall
Russian knapweed	Fall

Cost-share is available inside the county's Land Stewardship boundary.

Colorado's Pesticide-Sensitive Registry

Colorado keeps a Pesticide-Sensitive Registry. Commercial applicators must notify registrants at least 24 hours before turf or ornamental applications within 250 feet of their homes, giving the date, approximate time and location. Since July 2024, applicators check it online. On farm jobs near subdivisions, operators also check CDA's DriftWatch viewer, map homes and yards as no-spray zones and fly only with wind blowing away from them.

Ditches and Horsetooth Reservoir

Horsetooth Reservoir, west of Fort Collins, holds about 151,750 acre-feet from the Colorado-Big Thompson Project and feeds the Charles Hansen and North Poudre Supply canals; the Poudre Valley uses half of the project's water. The project supplements irrigation on 615,000 acres across northern Colorado. Operators map canals, laterals and the Poudre as no-spray zones and use only products labeled for use near water.

Sugar beet roots

Great Western Sugar formed in 1901, the year the Loveland factory opened, and the Fort Collins factory ran from 1903 to 1954. In the 1930s, Larimer and Weld counties planted more than 100,000 acres of beets. Timnath's farmland grew potatoes, alfalfa and sugar beets and ran cattle after homesteading began in 1860, and the Windsor factory, built in 1903, ran until the mid-1960s. Much of that ground still grows hay and grain today.

Ash borer and Japanese beetle

Emerald ash borer was first found in the county less than three miles southwest of Berthoud in October 2019, a concern for windbreaks and farmstead trees. Japanese beetle, first detected in Colorado in 1997, emerges in early June and peaks from late June into August on more than 300 host plants. Operators note both when scouting field edges.

A Larimer County spray season

Window	Typical drone work
April to May	Myrtle spurge, thistle rosettes, wheat herbicide
May to June	Alfalfa insects, liquid fertilizer
July	Yellow toadflax at flowering
Fall	Russian knapweed, Dalmatian toadflax

Licensing and airspace

Drone applicators hold a Colorado Department of Agriculture (CDA) commercial license with the aerial category, and the business holds an FAA Part 137 certificate with Part 107 pilots. The county weed district lists drone applicators among its approved contractors. Rocky Mountain National Park bans launching, landing or operating any drone, so work stays on the plains and foothill acreages.