It may have been from a time when even Sannie didn’t know as much about the importance of stress testing the parents of female seeds.
Other than that, which is also conjecture, this is unsubstantiated and has no bearing on his work.
If I had to guess, what is trying to be said here may be the fact that using a feminized mom when breeding increases the chances of intersex plants in the future.
You may be introducing intersex issues into your new breeding line by using feminized parents.
This was once thought of as a big no-no but a bunch of folks are doing it these days.
Nothing’s gonna change if you’re taking clones of feminized seeds; they’re still the same genes. The only purpose taking clones might serve is to see if they’re gonna herm before you start breeding with them. That might be why he told you that, but it’s still somewhat misleading in the way it’s phrased. Really, you should be growing out any breeding candidate to see how it performs first anyway.
As far as feminized seeds herming, dunno if there’s any difference. I don’t see why there would be if they’re made through CS/STS reversals of stable plants… however, I have to admit that most of the hermies I’ve found were from feminized seeds. Probably just luck of the draw though, I’m still new - or possibly the breeders I got those seeds from are just unreliable. I haven’t heard anyone raving about Tony Greenhand’s work lately, or ever for that matter.
Epigenetics comes to mind; the tagging of DNA with markers (induced by stress or other environmental inputs) such that the next offspring carry that new tag and express parts of the genome that wouldn’t otherwise be expressed. I can imagine that, in the case of what’s reported by @Toker1, after many clones of clones, the epigenetic marker is again absent.
ChatGPT on the matter:
In plants, epigenetic changes can sometimes be stably inherited across multiple generations.
Some studies have reported epigenetic changes that persisted for at least several generations, while others have found that they can be reset in just one or two generations.
Overall, the stability and duration of epigenetic tags in plants is an area of ongoing research, and more studies are needed to determine the precise factors that influence their persistence across generations.
Repeatedly taking clones of clones in order to potentially remove epigenetic markers from one environment, the extent and effects of which we know nothing about, and potentially replace them with epigenetic markers from another environment, the extent and effects of which we know nothing about, doesn’t exactly seem like a great use of time. Unless you’ve been able to find a lot better information on epigenetics than I have? If so, please share, because I’m as clueless as ChatGPT seems to be about it - I know it’s a thing, but ask me details and all I can do is give you a lot of waffle full of maybes and possiblies. An area of ongoing research, and many more studies are needed.