Whats your thoughts about sugar water

[FarmboyBill]

Thousands of gallons of it,
My boy is a supervisor at a company in Tulsa that handles incoming sugar shipments. They buy ALL the sugar that gets into Tulsa. Any company wanting to buy sugar, buys it from them. When the rail cars are emptied, as he tells me, a couple hundred lbs of sugar is left in the car. They have to wash it out before returning the car to the railroad. They cant let that water into the sewer, so they tank it and give it away. He said a big rancher used to buy it. He would buy corn stalk rounds and spray it on them and the cows would slarp it up. When he had more than he could use or tank, he just had the delivery truck spray it out over his fields. He said it made the worms come to the surface, work the ground, and leave there castings all over from top to the bottom of their digs.
He said that it bulked up his cows. I said well, I knew that cause in the old days trail herds would stop off at a pond or river and let the cows soak it up before entering Newton, Ellsworth, Wichita, and Dodge. They then sold for more. He said yes, but the rancher said that cows on the sugar water REALLY bulked up.
I said, Well, You get the place your looking at, and I get the place im looking at, we liable to have to make deal.

[jwal10]

A lot like putting molasses on poorer feed to make it more palatable. Sugar is high energy....James

[homesteader824]

Another use for this could be by beekeepers. When starting new hives, preparing for winter, or helping out a weak hive, honeybees are fed syrup. In the spring it is a 1:1 ratio; in fall it's 2:1, i.e. 2 parts sugar to 1 part water. A beekeeper would need to know the ratio, and hosing out a rail car may be too weak a solution. Another sugar product beekeepers use is called fondant. In winter, when syrup would freeze, they feed a solid sugar candy called fondant. You basically boil down sugar water at about 240F and it sets into something like rock candy when it cools. If you could sweep out the sugar and save some of it, rather than using water, you could make more off the sugar selling it to beekeepers.

[Zephaniah]

and a little yeast, fire and copper pipe..........

[Forty Acres]

Hummingbird food.

[joe&katie]

What about the possibility of pesticides or other chemicals in the sugar? I would want to know what the sugar had gone through to get there.

[MichaelZ]

Sugar is known for "bulking" one up. People anyway

[FarmboyBill]

This sugar is used for a food product Why would there be chemicals or pesticides in it that would hurt animals if there using it to feed people??
I asked my boy about the beekeeper aspect. He said they couldn't use enough volumn to make it worth while. I remember he saying a few years ago that bee keepers used to come and get something. I forget what. Maybe with the bees dying off there aren't enough of them to matter somehow.

[rambler]

Lot of farmers experimenting with adding 5-20 lbs of sugerto their spray tank when spraying corn or beans, supposed to help the good plants grow better.

Not a lot of factual results on that, but would be a good use for the stuff.

Any ethanol plants in the area, would think that would blend right into the corn or sorgum or whatever they distill.

Paul

[FarmboyBill]

Nope Ram, this is oil country, not corn country. No E plants here. 2 gas plants in Tulsa.

GEE. Wonder what spraying that on Sweet corn would do for it LOL.

Guess I could spray it on both the corn AND Sudan Grass. With alla the more protein in OP corn supposedly than hybred corn and getting sprayed with sugar water, The cows oughta go crazy to get to eat it. Maybe effect the bees during pollination too.

But, you could only do it for around a month before the corn got too tall to be driving through.

[Fennick]

All animals and insects like sugar. I think spraying sugar water on fields and crops would be an open invitation to rodents, possums, raccoons, etc. and swarms of destructive chewing insects to come to the fields and crops and destroy them.

[copperkid3]

Is this cane or beet sugar? Or is it high frutose corn syrup?

Makes a BIG difference as to who would want to use it, as well as how it can be used.

[FarmboyBill]

Don't know. ill ask

[fordson major]

we have a corn refinery plant near us that gives away tank washings to farmers to spray on their bunker silos, adds fermentable sugars. when they get to much or an unpalatable batch, it is stored in tanks and sprayed on fields, makes the crop grow!!