I tested exactly what your asking about. About 10-15 years back I remember some talk of this and I remember seeing some commercial tests and documentation. With drip feed the plants do grow grow good especially in veg . Water will always go down the quickest way it can, so with a single dripper if positioned near the middle of ov the visable surface the water wont reach to the sides of the pot. So for example if growing in a 10ltr pot with grow pebbles there will be many dry areas around most of the outer edge. With the single dripper It will leave a circle of humidity around the drip site too and depending on media used an following the rules of gravity some media will also create a damp area due to some wicking. But after testing vs other methods were water would make contact with all the media an inside of the pot, the single dripper roots concentrate most of the bulk of the root growth downwards in the area the water drips and not as much outwards. Were as the other methods the roots were much better outwards towards the edge of the pot . Even out the holes at the bottom of the pot (these pots had holes all over the bottom not just edges) water would come out around the area it was going in at the top, about 4-5inch either way, from the drip site centre it near enough dry. The sort of bell shape the driper covers isnt very big with dripping drops of water.
With drip feed if your going to use it thoughout the grow you can use taller narrower pots or what ive done in the past is use high pressure pumps, so wen the water comes out it splashes off the top of the media creating a bigger wet area width wise, or just use sprayers on your drip line ends. I used to create two exits for water with the spliter parts then add 2 min sprayers. Two or 3 mini sprayers positioned in the right place should create a decent covarage area for most indoor pots
MHPGardener growing tomatoes, yep thats where i got the idea from, dutch buckets, theres others too that came after his vid, but none cover the topic of how the water would spread out, hoocho has one vid of the same style with 2 feed lines per bucket. so it spreads out pretty well huh, it must, i just didnt know how quickly, my containers are shallow but wide because of space, so i was a bit concerned with how fast it spreads, im going to get watering rings to be sure of good coverage, yes it will be down from the surface to avoid algae growth and maybe covered also. yeah i have one pant that im hand watering right now growing in100 % perlite and it really loves it so yes that looks like a good way to go.
