Ag and wildlife valuation in Navarro County

Why it’s worth the trouble

Two ways the same acre gets valued

Land in a qualifying agricultural use is taxed on what it produces rather than on what it would sell for, and on rural land the gap between those two numbers is usually the largest single carrying cost of owning the place. Losing the valuation, or never applying for it, is expensive in a way that doesn’t show up until the bill does. The rules are public. This is where they are, and what this county in particular requires. What the land itself will carry is the other half of the question.

What qualifies, and at what intensity

Navarro County’s own standards

Grazing.

Navarro County publishes the stocking rate rather than an acreage floor: 5 to 7 acres per animal unit on improved pasture, 7 to 12 on native, the same across all five of the county’s soil associations. An animal unit is one 1,000-pound animal — a cow, a horse, six ewes, eight Angora goats. There’s a written drought exception for reducing or even clearing a herd in a dry year.

Hay, crops, orchards and vineyards.

Hay is expected to run one to two cuttings a year. Row crops carry a 20-acre minimum. Orchards and vineyards have their own minimums and published spacing and yields — irrigated peaches at 5 acres, dry-land pecans at 10, dry-land grapes at 3 — and at least 95% of the tract has to be planted.

Beekeeping.

Between 5 and 20 acres, and the county publishes the hive count it expects: six colonies at five acres, rising by one for each further two and a half acres, to twelve at twenty.

Wildlife management.

The land has to already be qualified for agricultural or timber valuation at the moment the use changes. Then at least three of seven practices: habitat control, erosion control, predator control, supplemental water, supplemental food, shelter, and census counts. In Navarro County the tract must be 12.5 acres with a 92% use ratio — or 10 acres at 90% inside a wildlife management association. The plan goes to the chief appraiser on TPWD’s form, not to Parks and Wildlife.

The deadline is the same every year.

An application must be postmarked or filed by midnight on 30 April. The chief appraiser can extend it up to 60 days, but only if the request comes in before the deadline. A late application carries a penalty of 10% of the tax difference.

And Navarro asks for a report every year.

State law lets an appraisal district require an annual wildlife report. This county does require one. That’s a real obligation to take on with the valuation, and it’s the part people forget in year two.

Two things to check for yourself

Two places the published guidelines are behind the law

Both of these cost money, and a landowner reading only the county’s own document wouldn’t know. The appraisal district’s staff answer the phone and are the people who decide these questions; the sources are named below.

1. The rollback is three years, not five. Navarro CAD’s Guidelines For Open Space Land Valuation, revised March 2025, still describe the recapture as covering “the five years preceding the change in use.” The Legislature cut it to three years and removed the interest in 2019, and the Texas Comptroller’s Manual for the Appraisal of Agricultural Land, current as of October 2024, states three. The Comptroller’s manual is the one to rely on.

2. The wildlife tract-size test changed in 2008. The county’s guidelines say the minimum acreage applies where a tract has been reduced in size and has changed ownership. The rules adopted in December 2008 dropped the second half: a reduction in acreage alone is enough. As written, the county’s test is narrower than the rule, which is the direction that catches people out.

Sources, all public: Navarro CAD, Guidelines For Open Space Land Valuation, revised 27 March 2025 · Texas Comptroller, Manual for the Appraisal of Agricultural Land, October 2024, and Guidelines for Qualification of Agricultural Land in Wildlife Management Use, July 2023 · Texas Parks and Wildlife, Comprehensive Wildlife Management Planning Guidelines for the Post Oak Savannah and Blackland Prairie Ecological Regions. Read 8 September 2026.

The part that costs money

Rollback

What the rollback is.

When land in agricultural valuation stops being used that way, the county recaptures the tax that was not paid. Under current state law that’s the three years preceding the change in use, and no interest — the Legislature cut it from five years in 2019.

What doesn’t trigger it.

Selling the land doesn’t. Neither does the owner building a home on it. What triggers it’s the use changing — and where only part of a tract changes use, only that part rolls back.

Why it matters most on a small tract.

The rollback follows the land, so it’s the buyer’s problem as much as the seller’s. On a divided tract it’s one of the first things a careful buyer asks about, and it belongs in the conversation before a price is agreed rather than at the closing table.

Straight answers

What owners ask about the exemption

I inherited land that has an ag exemption. Do I have to do anything?

Yes — the valuation doesn’t simply pass through. A new owner files a new application, and the deadline is 30 April. This is the single most common way a family loses a valuation their parents held for a lifetime.

My tract is too small to run cattle. Is wildlife valuation the answer?

It can be, and it’s the reason the wildlife option exists. The catch is that the land must already be qualified for agricultural or timber valuation when the use changes — you can’t start from raw, unqualified land. In this county the tract also has to be 12.5 acres, or 10 inside an association.

Does a wildlife plan mean I have to hunt?

No. The seven practices are management activities, and three of them are enough. Supplemental water, food plots, brush and erosion work, and keeping a census are all on the list.

If I divide my place, what happens to the exemption?

That’s the question to ask before the lines are drawn rather than after. Reducing a tract can bring the wildlife minimum into play, and a piece that no longer supports a qualifying use can lose the valuation and trigger the rollback. It’s part of what a subdivide comparison has to price.

Is this tax advice?

No, and it should not be read as any. The appraisal district decides these questions, not a broker. What is here is where the rules are published and what this county’s own numbers are, so that the conversation with the district or with a tax adviser starts from the right place.

Not sure where your tract stands?

Send the appraisal-district notice and roughly what the place is used for, and I’ll tell you what it looks like — what it’s carrying now, what the county asks for, and what a change of use would cost. Then you take it to the district or to your tax person with the right questions already written down. Email reaches me fastest, and I answer it myself. If you call and get voicemail, leave a message and I’ll call you back.

Call (903) 695-2978 · Email what you have · What your land will carry · Selling land here

Ag and wildlife valuation