King David. Tart but lots of flavor. What are my black spots?
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Lack of calcium
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It is hard to see the black spots you mention. The pic was not clear.
However, here is the info about bitter pit due to calcium deficiency.
Apple (Malus spp.)-Bitter Pit | Pacific Northwest Pest Management Handbooks.
My Honey Crisp suffers this disorder quite a bit.
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This is the worst one. Circles are not depressions and I do not see evidence of any damage on the interior of the apples. There is some ‘sooty blotch’ near the bottom of the apples, too - but not much. I also have a Goldrush with lots of fruit - but it doesn’t have any of the spots. Does have some sooty blotch, though. - Thanks for the link. 
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Here are more of the Monark apples that were picked a few days ago. Very nice tasting apples with a great crisp sweet/tart taste. Similar to the sweet/tart combination of a Mac. Beautiful big apples.
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Pfirsichroter Sommerapfel (peach-red summerapple), an old variety from germany Two weeks after White Transparent. Single fruit from a one year old graft on M9.
Pretty soft, a little bit overripe. Would not meet todays demand for crunchy apples, but has a nice aroma.
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Mike your Monark are a beauty. On another thread, @hambone is asking for advice on when to pick Monark.
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Nice name. Wish you cut it up so we could see what the flesh looked like.
What’s your key to best time to pick Monark? I can’t figure them out.
I just picked them the first week to 10 days of August. I tried picking some of them a little sooner but the flesh tasted a little more tart and a little starchy. The ones I picked earlier were sort of harder to pick off the tree but not to the point of taking off the fruit spur. Plus the seeds inside were brown but not darker brown as the later picked ones.
I let a few stay on the tree a little later- 15th of August. The flesh was a little more dry. I have three more still on the tree and I will pick them in a few days. See what they taste like and how the flesh is. I made an apple crisp with them and it tasted very good.
I have been very impressed with this apple. There are no nurseries around here that grow the Monark apple so it was purely a guess and hope it was a good apple. It is an excellent apple and even more so since it is an early ripening apple.
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Gorgeous! And they sound wonderful!
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What did your Monark taste like? That is one gorgeous apple, @MikeC !
What other heirloom (southern) apples have you had success with? This one is fairly disease resistant, correct? If you are trading scions this coming winter . . . I would sure like a few. ? I’ll ask again when the time comes.
The Monark has a sweet /tart taste like a McIntosh or Jonathan type does. Very crisp and tasty.
My other heirloom apples are too young to produce apples yet. A few have had a few apples on them this year but they were very small. Probably get some bigger apples once they have produced for a few years.
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I just discovered that Discovery could crack badly.
I had two this year from a small graft. The darker skin had darker pink streak inside. The paler skin has paler color inside.
Texture was like McIntosh. Not crisp or crunchy. It was not juicy, either. It took an effort to squeeze juice off the darker one. Brix was 14. Could get juice out of the paler one. All things considered, not bad for a badly cracked, rain-soaked apple. I believe rain had washed away any flavor or sugar it may have had.
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Here is a honeycrisp from a four year old tree. No pesticides or sprays. I just bagged them in organza bags in spring. Taste was tart with loads of sweet like a crisp cider candy. Very juicy. Kids loved them.
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Can you take more pics of your Honey Crisp? The coloring of that one does not look like a typical Honey Crisp.
Well I got it from home Depot so it may not be labeled correctly. It may not be the coloring you are expecting for many reasons such as it was grownn in the shade, is a young tree, and was in an organza bag the whole ripening time.
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Mother, picked yesterday, put in the fridge overnight. First fruit from this tree, and first year for any of our apples. Probably picked a week or more early, but our squirrels have been starting to get active, and I’d rather be eating a slightly under-ripe apple than picking a squirrel-savaged one off the ground.
My first impression was that it tasted a bit like a Mac, except that (a) the texture was significantly harder and (b) it didn’t have as much of the “vinous” thing going on. A bit difficult to explain actually, and subtle enough that it might have been kind of underwhelming if I had eaten something more intensely flavored right before it. But on its own, it had what I can only describe as a distinctively “clean” taste that lingered pleasantly in my mouth. Crisp, cool, and refreshing.
We have a few more of these still on the tree, so it will be interesting to compare (if the squirrels don’t get them…).
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Glad you posted Mother. You have a lot of uncommon apples. Hope you continue to post their pics.
You definitely has much better vocabulary to describe taste and flavor.
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My HC is in partial shade and in bags, too.
My suspicion radar is up when you mentioned a Home Depot tree and a tart taste.
I will check my HC later today to compare pics with yours.