BACKGROUND: Succinate dehydrogenase inhibitors (SDHIs) constitute a fungicide class with increasing relevance in crop protection. These fungicides could play a crucial role in successful management of grey mould disease. In the present study the effect of fluopyram, a novel SDHI fungicide, on several developmental stages of Botrytis cinerea was determined in vitro, and the protective and curative activity against the pathogen was determined on strawberry fruit. Furthermore, fungal baseline sensitivity was determined in a set of 192 pathogen isolates. RESULTS: Inhibition of germ tube elongation was found to be the most sensitive growth stage affected by fluopyram, while mycelial growth was found to be the least sensitive growth stage. Fluopyram provided excellent protective activity against B. cinerea when applied at 100 µg mL(-1) 96, 48 or 24 h before the artificial inoculation of the strawberry fruit. Similarly, fluopyram showed a high curative activity when it was applied at 100 µg mL(-1) 24 h post-inoculation, but, when applications were conducted 48 or 96 h post-inoculation, disease control efficacy was modest or low. The measurement of baseline sensitivity showed that it was unimodal in all the populations tested. The individual EC(50) values for fluopyram ranged from 0.03 to 0.29 µg mL(-1). In addition, no correlation was found between sensitivity to fluopyram and sensitivity to other fungicides, including cyprodinil, fenhexamid, fludioxonil, iprodione, boscalid and pyraclostrobin. CONCLUSIONS: The obtained biological activity, baseline sensitivity and cross-resistance relationship data suggest that fluopyram could play a key role in grey mould management in the near future and encourage its introduction into spray programmes.