When using AUTOWIRE_NO in combination with dependency checking one would only expect dependency checking to be performed for properties that would actually be set (ie. properties annotated with @Autowired). However this does not seem to be the case. Doing something similar to the following will result in a dependency error for the logger property of the NonSpringAwareBaseClass. public abstract class NonSpringAwareBaseClass { private Logger log; public void setLogger(Logger aLogger) { log = aLogger; } // ... } public class IKnowAboutSpring extends NonSpringAwareBaseClass { private SomeClass myObj; @Autowired public void setMyObject(SomeClass aObj) { myObj = aObj; } } public class Main { public static void main(String[] args) { ApplicationContext ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("classpath*:resources/applicationContext-*.xml"); AutowireCapableBeanFactory factory = ctx.getAutowireCapableBeanFactory(); IKnowAboutSpring populateMeSpring = new IKnowAboutSpring(); factory.autowireBeanProperties(populateMeSpring, AutoWireCapableBeanFactory.AUTOWIRE_NO, true); } }