level up to 3,000 m (10,000 ft.). However, it performs best in a warm, relatively frost-free climate. The plant can survive a low temperature of -2.5 °C (27 to 28 °F) if the freeze is not prolonged, though it may drop many of its leaves. The species is a perennial, but its sensitivity to chilling, pests, and diseases force the growers to replant the crop every year. The crop also adapts well to greenhouse cultivation, training the plants up to 2 m tall, and obtaining yields that are 2-3 times larger than those obtained outdoors. They are propagated by cuttings since they are established easily without rooting hormones. It is grown in a manner similar to its relatives such as the tomato, though it grows naturally upright by habit and can thus be cultivated as a free-standing bush, though it is sometimes pruned on . Additionally, supports are sometimes used to keep the weight of the fruit from pulling the plant down. It has a fast growth rate and bears fruit within 4 to 6 months after planting. It is a perennial, but is usually cultivated as an annual. Seedlings are intolerant of weeds, but it can later easily compete with low growing weeds. Like their relatives tomatoes, eggplants, tomatillos and tamarillos, pepinos are extremely attractive to beetles, aphids, white flies and spider mites. Pepinos are tolerant of most soil types, but require constant moisture for good fruit production. Established bushes show some tolerance to drought stress, but this typically affects yield. The plants are parthenocarpic, meaning it needs no pollination to set fruit, though pollination will encourage fruiting. The plant is grown primarily in Chile, New Zealand and Western Australia. In Chile, more than 400 hectares are planted in the Longotoma Valley with an increasing proportion of the harvest being exported. Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador also grow the plant, but on a more local scale. Outside of the Andean region, it has been grown in various countries of Central America, Morocco, Spain, Israel, and the highlands of Kenya. In the United States several hundred hectares of the fruit are grown on a small scale in Hawaii and California. More commercially viable cultivars have been introduced from New Zealand and elsewhere in more recent times. As a result, the fruit has been introduced into up-scale markets in Japan, Europe and North America and it is slowly becoming less obscure outside