Abstract: Electronic nose is a kind of odor detecting technology developed rapidly in recent years. It has been used in food quality, safety and many other areas, and it is a nondestructive method. In order to describe the application of electronic nose technology for the domestic and international research in terms of grain, this paper reviewed electronic nose, its basic composition, the identification in the gas sensors as well as pattern classification analysis methods and so on. Besides, this paper highlighted the main research from 1997 in the filed of cereal odor testing, and then offered recent studies of electronic nose detecting of cereal odor, which was hopeful for future reference in related fields.