Hours: Closed Mondays
Tuesday - Friday 7 am - 5 pm 

OFFICE WILL BE CLOSED MARCH 11TH

Drone Program

 

Sublette County Weed & Pest acquired both a spray drone and a mapping drone in 2023 to expand and modernize invasive weed management efforts across the county. The 2025 spray season marked our second year of operational drone treatments, during which SCWP successfully treated approximately 120 acres of invasive weeds using drone technology. Treatments were conducted across a mix of private, state, and federal lands, demonstrating the program’s versatility and broad applicability.

Spray drones represent an innovative and highly effective tool for controlling noxious weeds. Key benefits include:

• Precision: Spray drones can target specific weed infestations and apply accurate herbicide rates, reducing chemical waste and minimizing impacts to desirable vegetation.
   

• Efficiency: Drones can treat areas more quickly than traditional ground-based equipment and can safely access challenging terrain such as wetlands, steep hillsides, narrow corridors, and small or irregularly shaped parcels.
   

• Safety: Drone applications significantly reduce operator exposure to herbicides and help avoid hazards commonly encountered by larger aerial or ground equipment, including power lines, trees, and wildlife.
   

As drone technology continues to advance, it is becoming an increasingly valuable tool for both weed treatment and monitoring. SCWP’s use of spray drones supports our goal of achieving more effective, efficient, and sustainable weed management throughout Sublette County.

In addition to treatment applications, SCWP continues to utilize a smaller mapping drone equipped with a high-quality camera to detect, document, and map weed infestations over large areas. Drone-based mapping has proven to be a cost-effective alternative to helicopter surveys and is significantly more time-efficient than mapping infestations on foot. This approach allows staff to cover more ground while gaining a comprehensive, bird’s-eye view of infestation size, distribution, and severity—supporting better planning and prioritization of control efforts.