Baking soda and brown sugar

My wife asked me about a comment she ran into about using baking soda and brown sugar dissolved in water on the garden.  Has anyone else heard of this?

Baking soda dissolved in water and sprayed on plants is a fairly common fungal remedy. It makes the pH high enough that some fungus has a hard time growing on plant surfaces.  I remember also hearing a guy say that you should put molasses in the soil because it activates a whole bunch of microbes. I don't know if brown sugar would do the same thing? Honestly mixing them together sounds counterproductive. I think you would want to do either one or the other since one you spray on the leaves and one you use as a soil dench.