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The Details of What Transpired in my Time at Milang

Roderick Ross

  • Approx 10 acres sandy loam on a rise overlooking Lake Alexandrina.
  • Leased from Mr. Gordon Wilson – approx 3kms west of Milang - Point Sturt Road, Milang.
  • Starting of lease and contents - unknown
  • Lease expired June 1969 – all equipment transferred to Struan Research Centre.
  • Project manager Harold Chamberlain
  • Project Officer Phil Judd
  • O.I.C. Tony Morris
  • Workman Bill Bagley – Farming experience. Moved on and became a wool classer with the Dept Agriculture.
  • Roderick Ross – engineering and irrigation development experience. Joined approx 1965 and transferred to Struan 1969 to develop the infrastructure of irrigation and other facilities.
  • Other Dept Agriculture Officers involved – Kevin Boyce – Leith Wallace – John Doolette.
  • Project extension from Milang – water drainage project at Long Flat near Murray Bridge – objectives unknown

Infrastructure

  • Irrigation system – 2 Harland centrifugal pumps coupled together – powered by electricity
    Spray system – Pumps operating in series – 20000GPH @ 60psi
    Flood system – Pumps operating parallel - 40000 GPH
    Controlled by switching of flow valves
  • Water pumped from Lake Alexandrina via a channel to pump intake sump
  • Pope lever lock and Ames hand shift spray line
    Sluice gate flood irrigation control
    Flood channels constructed by hand – Don Pearson, Keith Warner- year unknown
    Excess water returned to Lake Alexandrina via man-made drainage channel
  • Full Weather station – Stevenson screen – reading twice / weekday – once weekend days.
  • Office with pasture drying oven, sorting room and equipment
  • Sheep yards
  • Tractor – seed drill – mowers - sheep weighing equipment
  • Fertilizer - workshop and grain shed

Projects

  • Projects undertaken before my time unknown
  • Watering-nitrogen- grazing trial with perennial rye grass and clover
    Nitrogen – prilled calcium ammonium nitrate
    Watering on demand via – tensiometer readings (ceramic block at various depths connected to mercury tubes) – neutron source – lysimeter
    Sheep grazing – pasture growth sampled from quadrant crates – measuring sheep dung output
  • Lotus pasture trial
  • Demeter Fescue – growth determined by row widths
  • Lucerne – Hunter river – different watering applications
  • Plant breeding - wheat – barley  (project officer Terry Heard- Northfield) – Officer from Waite Inst unknown
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