Well, if you had bought them from the bulk barn, I would say that the odds are very good indeed to a yes to most everything above..

Store beans are bit more tricky, age plays a factor, I have had store beans start to sprout and then stop, I have had store beans struggle in our area not to produce but to be able to go to seed, because we have a shorter growing season then what the bean is gene wise going to give.. clearly a 90 day bean is going to rock it locally, a 120 plus not so much..

If they grow and set seed and it dry's in time, then it will be viable for next year. Have fun with it 🙂 I used to do it for larger plantings but now I work with heritage local to our climate zones or even shorter and harder, with a few heat lovers thrown in.. because you never know what the year will bring 🙂

I will be interested in the germ tests.. are you going to use the baggy method to test them?

Good points!
I have no idea where these beans were grown...could have been on mars for all I know!
Now, If I get them to grow and seed out, and harvest the first to do so for seed, plant those the next year and then do the same, I should end up with a local seed within 4 or 5 generations no?
The package does not indicate "product of" anywhere, only "distributed by Jack n The Beanstock, Brooklyn New York"

Per the seed training I took as a market gardener that is producing for community or seed houses (this is the second year, I have been contract to grow seed for re-sale) if you harvest from the very first ready fruit, or seed, it takes you three years of doing so to move and set your genes for each day earlier.

So if you beans, are to set at a 120 days for dry beans, to get to 119 days, it will take you harvesting and saving from the plants an pods that set first for three years to get that move over.. its a long process..

But it can be done.. as for the local seed.. you need a min of five years of growing in your area and season's to get a true "picture" of the seed in your local area and then you can work from there on what you want to shift or move on the plant-seed itself.

That's quite a while...I had made my assumptions from what I had read about creating hybrids.
Ya see...I'm learning already!

As in creating a hybred and then breeding it back to being stable, I assume you mean, then yes, five years is about right

I planted black beans, navy beans, black-eyed peas, chickpeas, fava beans, and kidney beans (all from a mixture I had) and am only seeing the red kidney beans doing well. These beans were bought separately and mixed, as an addition to soups. We'll see how they do later...

I know I said that I wouldn't do any "try it and see" crops this year, but I decided not to do any squash this year, so I have some space after all.
I picked up a $1.99 package of mixed beans at the grocery store...1 lb mix of red kidney, romano, and white navy beans(and 2 random black turtles).
It took me and the kids about 10 minutes to separate them, and volume wise, there is about a 1/3 to 1/3 to 1/3 ratio.
I'm going to plant them and see what happens...
Will they grow?
What germination rate do I get?
Do they produce food?
How much food?
Are the seeds they produce viable for the next year?

Denob, update pretty please 🙂 So did they germinate? Get any bean plants out of them?

I planted from an old bag of black-eyed peas (cowpea) as a bit of a N-fixer cover crop . Even in the crazy no-rain summer we're struggling with they seem to be growing OK on the hugel bed.

OK, I didn't count how many seeds I planted, so just as an estimate I would say 90% + germination.
All 3 types are growing as well as my heirloom green beans and are producing pods...as a relief, they are also all bush types.
The experiment continues...