ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the origin and distribution, nutritional composition, medicinal values, climatic requirement, soil requirement, cultivated varieties and post-harvest management of pepino. Pepino is a good option for kitchen gardens and for intercropping in newly planted orchards. The cultivation of pepino is extensively described by chroniclers in the kingdom of Peru, which in addition to Peru also included the present Ecuador, the North of Chile and the high plateau of Bolivia. Being a relatively hardy species, it grows in its native place at altitudes ranging from close to sea level to 3000 m. Pepino can be consumed in various ways like green and cooked vegetable, in fruit and spinach salads, fresh fruit as dessert and delicious fruit juice and squash. Pepino is a good antiscorbutic since it contains vitamin C at higher levels than normally found in most fruits. Aphids, whitefly, flea beetle, spider mites, leaf miner, thrip, fruit borer and root-knot nematode are the insect pests that attack pepino.
