Do We Focus On The Obvious Until The Machinery Bre RUDY HIEBERT 10/06/2011 @ 1:20pm Input costs, ie. fertilizers and seed are the obvious but does equipment maintenance take a back seat? Using synthetic lubricants for every application instead of petroleum based oils keeps the harvest equipment humming instead of experiencing costly down time. It may cost a bit more that petroleum oils and greases but will pay off when you see a neighbor broken down due to a worn out part that could have been prevented by using synthetic.