Dwarfing breeding is the trend of the crop breeding because the dwarfing plants are the compact plants type with small crown,the convenient cultivation management,the lodge resistance,and the high productivity.Some in-depth studies have been done on the dwarfing mechanism,dwarfing genes and dwarfing breeding.In this paper we summarized the progresses of studies on the dwarfing genes in crops including the genetic characteristics of dwarfing crops,the applications of molecular markers,the locating,isolating and cloning of dwarfing genes and the dwarfing genes transformation.