The invention discloses a soybean zinc finger protein gene SCTF-1 which is a C2H2-type zinc finger protein gene which is discovered in soybean and is relevant with low temperature. The experiment shows that the protein coded by SCTF-1 can be located to a cell nucleus; after being excessively expressed, the gene can obviously improve cold resistance of transgenic plants, and has a function of improving plant comprehensive stress tolerance. The gene provided by the invention is derived from soybean, and comprises an excellent codon of dicotyledon, such as soybean and the like; and the gene engineering receptor of the gene is mainly suitable for dicotyledon, such as soybean, tobacco and cotton and the like, and also suitable for monocotyledon, such as rice, wheat and corn and the like.