The advent of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) has had a profound impact on plant biology, and crop im-provement. In this review, we summarize the state-of-the-art development of CRISPR tech-nologies and their applications in plants, from the initial introduction of random small indel (insertion or deletion) mutations at target genomic loci to precision editing such as base editing, prime ed-iting and gene targeting. We describe advances in the use of class 2, types II, V, and VI systems for gene disruption as well as for precise sequence alterations, gene transcription, and epigenome control.