Abstract: Field experiments were conducted during 2012—2014 winter wheat growing seasons. Six irrigation treatments were designed: rainfed, W₀; a local irrigation practice that irrigated at jointing and anthesis with 60 mm each time, W₁; four irrigation treatments were designed with target relative soil moisture of 65% field capacity (FC) at jointing and 70% FC at anthesis in 0-20 (W₂), 0-40 (W₃), 0-60 (W₄), and 0-140 cm (W₅) soil layers, respectively, to study the effects of supplemental irrigation by measuring moisture content in different soil layers on water consumption characteristics and photosynthesis and grain yield of winter wheat. The irrigation amounts at jointing in W₅ and W₄ were the highest, followed by W₃ treatment, W₂ and W₁ were the lowest. The irrigation amounts at anthesis and total irrigation amounts were ranked as W₅＞W₁, W₄＞W₃＞W₂, the total water consumption in W₃ was higher than that in W₂, but had no difference with that in W₁, W₄ and W₅ treatments, W₃ had the higher soil water consumption than W₁, W₄ and W₅ treatments, and the soil water consumption in 40-140 cm soil layers from jointing to anthesis and in 60-140 cm soil layers from anthesis to maturity in W₃ were significantly higher than the other treatments. The photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate and water use efficiency of flag leaf at middle stage of grain filling from the W₃ treatment were the highest, followed by the W₁and W₄ treatments, and W₀ treatment was the lowest. In the two growing seasons, the grain yield and water use efficiency in the W₃ were 9077-9260 kg·hm^-2 and 20.7-20.9 kg·hm^-2·mm^-1, respectively, which were higher than those from the other treatments, and the irrigation water productivity in the W₃ was the highest. As far as highyield and highwater use efficiency were concerned in this experiment, the most appropriate soil layer for measuring moisture content was 0-40 cm.