Northern Spy

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The Northern Spy apple (Malus ‘Northern Spy’, sometimes known as "Northern Spie" or "Northern Pie Apple") is a variety of apple native to the Northern East Coast of the United States, parts of the Michigan Area, and is popular in the upstate New York area.

Its skin has green and red stripes when ripe and produces fairly late in the season (mid to late October). The white flesh is juicy, crisp and mildly sweet with a rich, aromatic subacid flavor. Its characteristic flavor is more tart than most popular varieties, and its flesh is harder/crunchier than most.

It is a good dessert apple and pie apple, that is also used for cider. Further, the Northern Spy is also an excellent apple for storage, as it tends to last longer due to late maturation and lower sugar conent.

The Northern Spy apple is known for taking as much as a decade to bear fruit unless grafted to a different rootstock. It was discovered around 1800 in East Bloomfield, New York, south of Rochester, New York, as surviving sprouts of a seedling that had died and was cultivated with stock brought in from Connecticut. The Wagener apple is believed to be one of its forebears. It fell somewhat out of favor due to its dull coloration, tendency to bruise, and lack of disease resistance, specifically subject to bitter pit and blossom fireblight but resistant to woolly aphid. It is not widely available at retail outside its growing regions but still serve as an important processing apple in those areas.