Biochemical models of leaf photosynthesis are invaluable tools for exploring the photo-physiological responses to environmental factors and identify potential targets to improve the efficiency of CO₂ fixation. The FvCB model can be used to fit CO₂ response curves developed under different environmental conditions and predict underlying photosynthetic biochemistry. However, to do this successfully it is important to improve chloroplast electron transport modeling, and gain a better understanding of internal CO₂ diffusion limitations and elucidate the mechanisms of stomatal (g_s) and mesophyll (g_m) conductance responses to environmental factors. The FvCB model and its application in determining the photo-physiological responses to environmental factors, such as light, CO₂, water, temperature, and N nutrition have been reviewed in this paper. To improve the veracity of the parameter estimations and reveal the mechanism of photo-physiological responses to environmental factors, the following studies should be emphasized in the future: 1) the relationship between the carboxylation rate of Rubisco and chloroplast electron transport rate; 2) the CO₂ diffusion limitations in mesophyll cells and its effect on parameter estimations; and 3) the regulation of g_s and g_m responses to different environmental conditions.