Abstract: Highyield winter wheat cultivar Jimai 22 was used to study effects of irrigation and planting patterns on water consumption characteristics and photosynthetic characteristics of winter wheat in field from 2009 to 2011. Three different planting patterns (uniform row, widenarrow row and furrow) and four irrigation schedules (W₀, no irrigation; W₁, irrigation at jointing stage; W₂, irrigations at jointing and anthesis stages; W₃, irrigation at jointing, anthesis and milking stages. Each irrigation rate was 60 mm) were designed in the experiment. Results showed that, with the increasing of irrigation amount, flag leaf area, net photosynthesis rate, maximum photochemical efficiency and actual light transformation efficiency at late growth stages of winter wheat increased. Compared with W₀ treatment, the other irrigation treatments had higher grain yields, but lower water use efficiencies. Under the same irrigation condition, the flag leaf net photosynthesis, maximum photochemical efficiency and actual light transformation efficiency were much higher in furrow pattern. Grain yields of winter wheat under furrow pattern and W₂ treatment were significantly higher than that of the other treatments. Taking grain yield and WUE into consideration, furrow pattern combined with irrigation at jointing and anthesis stages might be the optimal watersaving and planting mode for the winter wheat production in North China Plain.