diff --git a/artifacts/flagger/crd.yaml b/artifacts/flagger/crd.yaml
index 106cb1ff..b101d7be 100644
--- a/artifacts/flagger/crd.yaml
+++ b/artifacts/flagger/crd.yaml
@@ -91,7 +91,7 @@ spec:
                   properties:
                     items:
                       type: object
-                      required: ['name', 'interval', 'threshold']
+                      required: ['name', 'threshold']
                       properties:
                         name:
                           type: string
diff --git a/charts/flagger/templates/crd.yaml b/charts/flagger/templates/crd.yaml
index 0fd89e01..5e3c40a3 100644
--- a/charts/flagger/templates/crd.yaml
+++ b/charts/flagger/templates/crd.yaml
@@ -92,7 +92,7 @@ spec:
                   properties:
                     items:
                       type: object
-                      required: ['name', 'interval', 'threshold']
+                      required: ['name', 'threshold']
                       properties:
                         name:
                           type: string
diff --git a/pkg/apis/flagger/v1alpha3/types.go b/pkg/apis/flagger/v1alpha3/types.go
index 5829e954..f6bead85 100755
--- a/pkg/apis/flagger/v1alpha3/types.go
+++ b/pkg/apis/flagger/v1alpha3/types.go
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ const (
 	CanaryKind              = "Canary"
 	ProgressDeadlineSeconds = 600
 	AnalysisInterval        = 60 * time.Second
+	MetricInterval          = "1m"
 )
 
 // +genclient
@@ -128,7 +129,7 @@ type CanaryAnalysis struct {
 // CanaryMetric holds the reference to Istio metrics used for canary analysis
 type CanaryMetric struct {
 	Name      string  `json:"name"`
-	Interval  string  `json:"interval"`
+	Interval  string  `json:"interval,omitempty"`
 	Threshold float64 `json:"threshold"`
 	// +optional
 	Query string `json:"query,omitempty"`
@@ -172,3 +173,8 @@ func (c *Canary) GetAnalysisInterval() time.Duration {
 
 	return interval
 }
+
+// GetMetricInterval returns the metric interval default value (1m)
+func (c *Canary) GetMetricInterval() string {
+	return MetricInterval
+}
diff --git a/pkg/controller/observer.go b/pkg/controller/observer.go
index 15b48d9f..051321e4 100644
--- a/pkg/controller/observer.go
+++ b/pkg/controller/observer.go
@@ -80,8 +80,8 @@ func (c *CanaryObserver) GetScalar(query string) (float64, error) {
 		return 100, nil
 	}
 
-	query = strings.Replace(query, "\n","",-1)
-	query = strings.Replace(query, " ","",-1)
+	query = strings.Replace(query, "\n", "", -1)
+	query = strings.Replace(query, " ", "", -1)
 
 	var value *float64
 	result, err := c.queryMetric(query)
diff --git a/pkg/controller/scheduler.go b/pkg/controller/scheduler.go
index ebb92189..934b95ab 100644
--- a/pkg/controller/scheduler.go
+++ b/pkg/controller/scheduler.go
@@ -405,6 +405,10 @@ func (c *Controller) analyseCanary(r *flaggerv1.Canary) bool {
 
 	// run metrics checks
 	for _, metric := range r.Spec.CanaryAnalysis.Metrics {
+		if metric.Interval == "" {
+			metric.Interval = r.GetMetricInterval()
+		}
+
 		if metric.Name == "istio_requests_total" {
 			val, err := c.observer.GetDeploymentCounter(r.Spec.TargetRef.Name, r.Namespace, metric.Name, metric.Interval)
 			if err != nil {