Heat mats would be great if they made them in 4' x 8' size. The ones I have seen are the size of pillow cases.
That's a good point about pythium not actually being bacteria. I think pythium spores are in every breath of air we take. My greenhouse is in a 40-acre field. There's no sterilizing nature.
I think the best bet for me is simply avoiding organic fertilizers, at least until summer arrives. If I lived in an area of the country where people would pay $6 for a certified organic plant, then I could make enough money to pay for the extra heat required to be organic, but I don't. There is an organic plant vendor at my market, who is a very nice person that I like a lot, but her early stuff never looks very good. I can tell she doesn't have heat in her greenhouse either. Her plants improve a lot as the weather warms.
Pro-Mix comes without organic matter in it for a reason - that's the recipe that guarantees the most success across the largest spectrum of conditions. And I think it's the same with synthetic fertilizers. They work for me in cold weather, when the organic ones don't.
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