Therefore, reducing the competition between the intercropping species for resources in the environment is the great challenge in order to make it economically interesting to the vegetable producer. Agroecologia: bases científicas para uma agricultura sustentável. It is understood as temporal complementarity when the greatest demands of the crops for resources occur at different times, and spatial complementarity when canopies or roots capture resources in different areas ( Liebman 2002 LIEBMAN M. The factor planting time of the second species is one of the main factors of the intercropping management, since it influences the time and duration of species coexistence, thus affecting temporal and spatial complementarity (Cecílio Filho et al. Among them, and in a special way, is the planting time of the second species, which defines the beginning of the coexistence and, therefore, of the intercropping (Cecílio Filho et al. However, the intercropping efficiency depends directly on the species involved and the management factors (Cecílio Filho et al. Acta Hortic 607: 97-101., 2011), characteristics that make it a more environmentally-friendly production system. Productivity of lettuce and radish cultivations as a function of spacing and of time of establishment of intercropping cultivation. 2003 REZENDE BLA, CANATO GHD AND CECÍLIO FILHO AB. In the last decades, many researches have shown that intercropping of vegetables can be more efficient in the land and input use than monoculture (Bezerra Neto et al. acephala cultivation system land use efficiency competition index. Tetragonia expansa Brassica oleracea var. Competitiveness coefficient, aggressiveness and yield loss values showed that kale is the dominating species and spinach is the dominated. The intercropping was agronomically feasible, since the land use efficiency index, which was not influenced by the transplanting time, had an average value of 1.71, indicating that the intercropping produced 71% more kale and spinach than the same area in monoculture.

In intercropping, the spinach YH was 13.5% lower than in monoculture.

The spinach YH was not influenced by the transplanting time, but rather by the cultivation system. The spinach TY was influenced by the transplanting time, the earlier the transplanting, the higher the TY. The total yield (TY) and yield per harvest (YH) of the kale in intercropping did not differ from those obtained in monoculture. An experiment was carried out to evaluate the agronomic viability of kale and New Zealand spinach intercropping as a function of the spinach transplanting time. The intercropping is a production system that aims to provide increased yield with less environmental impact, due to greater efficiency in the use of natural resources and inputs involved in the production process.

New zealand spinach seedlings