I'm open to anything but I have enough trouble with ants without adding a snack to the soil!:0

The article said that they only gave one treatment several weeks after transplanting and them treated the trees as normal. If you tried it in early spring before the ants come out maybe it would be okay. I'm gonna try it on a few trees and see what happens.
Turtle

My guess is that it feeds the micro-herd. Here's why: While sugar is the only true plant food, the plant manufactures it itself, using CO2, sunlight and nutrients it takes up through the roots. Sugars consist of atoms of carbon, hydrogen, and, oxygen, arranged in different ways, elements which the plant finds readily in the soil w/o addition of sugar. The microbes in soil feed on hydrocarbon chains, of which sugar (and cellulose) is one. The benefit might well be derived from increased microbial activity. If so, it will surely hasten the breakdown of organic parts of your soil(s).

Al

Al,
That sounds logical, but I think that the idea was that the roots use the sugar for growth. The leaves produce sugars naturally which slowly find their way down to the roots where they are used as building blocks for cellulose ect. If there is more sugar availible in the soil, the roots don't have to wait for it to trickle down from the leaves. But it also true as you say that microbes would thrive off of the sugar, and perhaps that is what caused the increase in root vigor. If I find more studies on the subject I will share any new information.
Turtle

Turtle - if plants could absorb sugar, we'd be using it as fertilizer or growing them in a medium rich in sugars. Plants manufacture their own food, using 17 elements. Elements present in sugar are the ones listed above, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, all 3 macro (or main) elements. It is impossible for a plant to experience a carbon deficiency because it comes from splitting carbon dioxide molecules during photosynthesis. Even if this weren't so, it is available in massive quantities in the organic component of your soil. Oxygen comes from the same molecule as it is divided. In proper soil, oxygen is not in short supply, either. Hydrogen comes from splitting the water molecule, and also adds additional oxygen.

We cannot "feed" plants. We can only try to make sure they have the building blocks to manufacture their own, and the three macro-elements found in sugar molecules will never be in short supply unless the plant is dry. In that case it would be unable to take up any elemental nutrients regardless of the concentration.

Plants readily translocate both current photosynthate and stored photosynthate to sinks. Sinks are places like growing leaves or roots and cells on both sides of the cambium - places that are using energy. I guess I'm saying that plants food and energy come from the inside, not the outside.

If you find your answers, please share them. It would be interesting to learn of the mechanism by which this might work.

Al

Well done Al. You should be teaching a botany class.

Vernon

FYI....For many, many years I have planted everything in the ground adding several handfuls of sugar around the root zones because sugar discourages root knot nematodes. The sugar treatment allows young, newly planted plants/trees/shrubs to grow a bit, gaining strength without the nematodes feeding on young rootlets which reduces plant vigor and also allows them to adjust to new soils and surroundings. Let me hastily say that root knot nematodes are not a problem in many parts of the world, but they are present in all soils to one degree or another. It has always been my theory (don't have one bit of proof to back this up) that root knot nematodes are attracted to and feast on most plants that are under stress. A recently transplanted plant should be considered under stress until it adjusts to its new surrounds. Those plants that I know to be very vulnerable to the RK nematode receive sugar treatments heaped on the soil surface several times during the first growing season. I have never had a problem with ants being attracted to the sugar.

So, this old dirt horticulturist is presenting a theory here which has worked for me over the years. I further suggest that it might be the answer to the Journal of Arborculture article. Have fun with this one!

I will shortly be planting some new shrubs and will give this a try. Sounds very interesting. Maybe all my ants will go underground. Hope it works, and I'll try to keep you posted with the results.

I believe Dorothy Koroshoff in Australia uses a sugar solution for newly potted bonsai material with good results.

This has been one of (what I thought) my secret methods for years. One point not mentioned in any of the above is the fact that when a tree is root stressed the top is going to continue to use fuel though the roots are not participating in the process. I use both a foliar application and a one time soil application. I mix two table spoons of common sugar in a gallon of water. I water the soil as I would in fertilizing and I make a foliar application in a common spray bottle and mist the foliage twice a day for a week.

Vance Wood.