I think he said in his video that the plant will suck up the citric acid produced in the container when the fruit ripens. I don't know much about root rot, but apparently he isn't getting it.

The roots aren't wet. They sit in perlite which absorbs the nutrient up from the tray. The moisture will go up 3 - 4" inside the pot, but there is no free flowing water. It's all absorbed by the perlite nodules.
Moist perlite and lots of air . . . perfect.

I'm confused on the citric acid comment. I don't understand how the citric acid is potentially washed away in a recirculating or run to waste system as opposed to his. The citric acid is stored in the roots, not released where they can be washed away. That is my understanding. I could be completely wrong, though. Also, he talks about the splits being a good sign of a fully ripe tomato. Again, not entirely true. Splits are generally caused by a sudden influx of water (very common in a soil garden when it rains heavily) or a sudden decrease in humidity which will speed transpiration. The latter is the one that affects hydroponics most, of course. The splits are just caused by the tomato having too thin of skin to withstand the building water pressure. Do they tend to split the longer you leave them on the vine? Of course. You are allowing more and more water to build up. Will they split prior to ripening, too? Anyone with a ground garden can tell you that. Most have experienced splitting on at least one or two tomatoes after a good deep watering. Especially during a dry spell. Tomatoes and other plants aren't all evolved (whether through natural or unnatural selection) to a point of handling the odd condition of root watering without leaf watering. Some are and I've seen them advertised as split resistant. The rain and humidity during a natural watering cycle will cause transpiration to slow. Most with experience here know that you can mist leaves to slow transpiration in dry conditions. That is especially true for new cuttings, of course. When people choose not to top water and instead only drown the root zone, they haven't slowed transpiration at all, but they have given the process more fuel. I don't know about the comment that higher sugar content means it will draw more water. It seems to me that the higher water content is what moves more sugars. The sugars don't move on their own. Surely the sugar buildup is directly proportionate to the amount of water available to the fruit.

His system looks to work like the autopot systems. I don't know his method of delivery, but the autopot system works by filling a shallow tray letting the tomato plant taking what it needs as it needs it.

I'm a little skeptical of the people who eschew anything but their own methods of growing.

"What's that you say? Only your tomatoes taste as good as tomatoes are supposed to taste? And it just so happens you're in the business of growing and selling tomatoes? What a coincidence!"

Next thing you know Apple will be trying to convince us their computers are better than anyone else's. And we can trust them 'cause they're not at all biased, right?

In my experience vine-ripened tomatoes do taste better. But all the stuff this guy is saying? I dunno, seems a bit much.

Regardless of how you grow the best tasting stuff is the stuff you grow yourself. It's like how ever parent thinks their kid is the smartest, prettiest, and so on.

I was just interested in the way he grows; using Perlite and setting the tubs in a puddle of nutrient. I didn't pay any attention to his "pitch".

I'm setting up a system like his to try it out. I regularly store pre-mixed nutrient in a 2-gallon, aluminum-foil-lined plastic bucket with an air stone bubbling 24/7 inside until I use the stuff. I intend using this nutrient and top watering to replenish the puddle in the 10 x 20 tray.

Sound like a plan?

I'll keep everyone in the loop on this one.

You've definitely got my interest.

Like you said though, I'm skeptical about how well it will work without leading to algae growth, root rot, or any of the other problems associated with hydroponics where the solution isn't kept in motion and aerated.

As I stated before, I STORE my nutrient solution under 24/7 aeration, so I'm thinking that puts me one step ahead of algae and root rot.

I was encouraged by greystoke's comment that the perlite would suck up moisture 3" - 4" and that the combination of lots of air was "perfect".

We'll see. Stay tuned - I'll do the show-and-tell thing on the Web site.

Sounds good, and I'm not trying to suggest you don't know what you're doing.

It just seems from the guy's description that he's talking about a significant amount of standing solution around the plants, which I can't imagine wouldn't promote algae. Aeration beforehand is good, but as soon as it stops the chance for growth starts to rise.

Cool. Nothing beats first-hand experience, but second-hand observation is a close runner-up!

I love your idea of using the 5 gallon buckets!! thanks so much for the idea!! I will now di the same thing in my garden to use with strawberries and flowers what a great idea!! Keep up the good work will be following your progress with experiment.
K