Thousands of hectares of bluegum plantations are being ripped out and mulched and the land returned to farming.
Two years since the major managed-investment-scheme (MIS) financial meltdown, the trees are worthless.
Bluegum plantations are being torn down, with paddocks being returned to the production of crops and pasture.
It's a quick turnaround for some paddocks; land that was plantation last season, is growing wheat and barley this year.
Contractor Charles Pithie is working at Skipton in western Victoria. He has a machine that grinds back tree stumps.
"We're in a paddock of harvested bluegums. We have a 350 horsepower tractor running a grinding machine that's been modified.
"There are two of these machines in Australia, the other one is over in Western Australia.
"We're running the tractor at full revs, travelling at a speed of about one to two kilometres an hour."
The machine has teeth that grind back the stump, mulching the part of the stump that sits above the earth.
"We can go down approximately 200 millimetres into the ground but we're finding that we really only need to go 50 millimetres down from ground level into the soil. That takes out the stump, the mound and a little bit more of the root ball."
A lot of the tree roots are left behind. But Mr Pithie forecasts that they'll come in handy.
"The whole idea, and interesting part of this process, is that the roots are left in the ground to rot away so over time they'll benefit the soil and clay structure under the ground.
"I predict that yields in this area will increase over time and those roots rot away."
Once the mulcher has passed over the paddock, it's raked to pick up any remaining timber debris.
The paddock is then ready to sow, although it's still a bit rough and ready in places, bumpier than your typical cropping paddock.
Mr Pithie uses a simple airseeder to sow the now bare paddocks to crops like wheat and barley.
After the grain is harvested he'll burn the stubble, clearing away any leftover debris.
Mr Pithie's own home is surrounded by bluegum plantations, but won't be for long.
He says the land use change that's occurred in the district is remarkable.
"It is so ridiculous.
"Some people have seen it happen before with some MIS schemes and we've seen it happen now on a big scale with the bluegums.
"No doubt another generation will go past and we might see it happen again. But a ridiculous amount of money has been lost and wasted in this process."
But there are some, like Mr Pithie, that are benefiting from the failure of the MIS schemes.
"We're not making a lot of money out of someone's big mistake but there are a few of us, earth moving contractors, excavator drivers, log truck drivers, there's definitely some money to be made.
"But it's testing me. When the phone rings I know it's the mulcher driver on the phone, if something's gone wrong and it's going to be an expensive day to follow."
Mr Pithie is completing the work for the Australian Agribusiness Group, a company that researches agribusiness and Managed Investment Schemes.
The group bought 6000 hectares of former MIS plantations that were owned by Environinvest, which is now in liquidation.
AAG executive chairman Marcus Elgin says they want to convert 85 per cent of the plantations back to farmland.
They're working at sites at Skipton, Beaufort, Ararat and Lake Lonsdale.
He says at least 50 per cent of the trees in the plantations aren't valuable enough to harvest.
"It's not worth harvesting the timber because the trees didn't grow sufficiently well in their previous life to warrant being harvested.
"The best use for that land at the present point in time, what an agent might say the highest and best use, is as grazing and cropping land."
Mr Elgin says it's not the first time there's been a dramatic change in land use.
"Much of the land that was originally cleared to put to grazing was native forest.
"It was completely harvested and then put to sheep and then converted to crop country and then that was converted back to forest, which is now being harvested to put back to crop country and to grazing.
"There's no doubt that what's happened in the last 15 years has been dramatic on the up side and dramatic on the down side as well.
"But no investment is free of risk."
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