Andy Brown

I see, that's a bummer!

How far is the nearest airport? It doesn't look like Canada's UAV regulations are too harsh. If you could get a small drone then you could pretty easily create a DEM of your land. I think that would be the easiest option, the balloon idea could work but it would be a lot tougher to get consistent photos.

For what reason are you planning on surveying? I'm sorry, I may have missed the context for your post on surveying.

Very interesting thread. Regarding surveying, I think drones would be your best and easiest option. I have devised a fairly easy approach using a DJI Phantom 4 and the Litchi app (for Android and iphone) to fly a grid over my farm and take photos at regular intervals. Those photos can then be stitched together using either FOSS or relatively cheap software (Agisoft Photoscan). The photos are geotagged with the drone's location (onboard GPS) and after you stitch the photos together you get a georeferenced orthomosaic or you can even create a 3D textured mesh or digital elevation model (DEM). I haven't yet tried to attach a multispectral camera to the drone but it's definitely possible to use one to monitor crop growth, nutrient/water deficiency etc.