I can tell you from my own experience and observation that a super mild winter like the South experienced last year is an invite for soil born problems to explode the next season. Even though we had a late killing freeze none of the cold spells got cold enough to freeze the ground nor did they last long enough to subdue some of the RKN and fusarium.
Back when I was growing heirlooms without grafting I can remember how excited I got about the coming tomato season when my raised beds froze solid and stayed frozen for over a week. I knew it would mean less early fusarium and less virulent fusarium at least until late summer. We don't have many winters where it gets down cold like that for very long and so it was rather notable that the next tomato season had far less fusarium than after our normal mild winters. The other good side affect of a very cold winter was far less pests early in the season and usually milder foliage disease problems early in the season.
Bill
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