Novaspy

NOVASPY

Origin	Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Kentville, Nova Scotia, 1986.
Parentage	Nova Easygro x (Red Spy x Golden Delicious).
Availability	Early October to May.
Source	Limited quantities of certified budwood (elite level) are now available from the Okanagan Plant Improvement Company (PICO).
Quality	Novaspy is very similar to Northern Spy with a tart/sweet and slightly astringent apple flavour. Flesh is crisp and moderately juicy; slightly sweeter than Spy and McIntosh.

Fruit:

Size	Medium to large. At Kentville they have grown up to 200 g when thinned.
Surface	Smooth.
Ground Colour	Greenish yellow.
Over Colour	Approximately 85% blushed and striped with dark red, with slight russet at the cavity.
Flesh Colour	Fresh fruit is a creamy yellow. Processed fruit has the same yellow hue and brightness as Northern Spy.
Harvest Season	Earlier than Spy. For pies, fruit should be harvested between October 4 to 10, when starch index is 4 to 6 and internal ethylene < 1 ppm. Earlier harvest fruit is not suitable for processing. Fruit does not drop.
Storage	Regime comparable to that used for Spy. Current Controlled Atmosphere (CA) recommendations are 2.5% O₂ and 4.5% CO₂. Fruit from young trees appears susceptible to CO₂ damage so levels should be monitored. Novaspy should not be sstored for more than four months in air, but will retain good quality in CA for up to 8 months. For best processing quality, there should be no delay between harvest and CA storage.
Strains	None known.

Tree:

Vigour	Moderately vigourous.
Habit	Upright spreading, few laterals, branch angles more open than Spy, some blind wood. Compared to Spy, it is not as vegetative, less shoot growth within canopy, less canopy all together. Will probably have management requirements similar to Cortland, given similarity of tree type.
Fruit Placement	Spurs and tips, able to mature two fruit per cluster.
Bloom Period	Mid season.
Pollination	Research on pollinizers is in progress but it appears to set crops easily.
Crop	Productive, annual, precocious. Bears in third year on M9 and MM106. When crop was adjusted for tree size in a trial at Kentville, Novaspy was in the most heavily cropping group. Fruit size keeps increasing through fall, like Spy and Cortland, unlike Empire or Delicious.
Synchrony	Ripens evenly; can be harvested in one pick.
Adaptation	Field observations following recent test winters in Ontario and Nova Scotia indicate that it is very cold hardy (rating = 2, where 1 = extremely hardy, 9 = extremely tender) though controlled low-temperature trials have not been done.
Disease Reaction	Field immunity to scab. Moderately resistant to powdery mildew (ON). Susceptible to juniper apple rust at Smithfield (ON) and Geneva (NY). Untested for fireblight and quince rust. Bitter pit has been seen but Novaspy is less sensitive than Spy.
Insect Reaction	Early observations indicate that Novaspy is fairly resistant to mullein bug and brown bug. Its susceptibility to rosy apple aphid is similar to McIntosh, less than Gravenstein and Cortland.
Rootstock	Has been grown successfully in Nova Scotia on several rootstocks including M9, M26, MM106, BA seedling and KSC3 and no incompatibilities have been observed to date.

Comments:

This description is based on observations of the cultivar as grown on a limited scale in commercial orchards of the Annapolis Valley and in test plots at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Research Centres at Kentville, Nova Scotia and Smithfield, Ontario. It has also been in limited testing at Cornell University, Geneva, New York and Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregan.

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