Abstract: In order to explore the characteristics of water consumption of flue-cured tobacco in Yunnan and develop technology of efficient water management in tobacco field, a pot experiment in greenhouse was conducted in Yuxi City, Yunnan Province. With conventional irrigation (CK) as control, two negative pressure irrigation treatments of –5 kPa (W1) and –10 kPa (W2) were set up to observe the characteristics of water consumption, growth and development and photosynthesis of flue-cured tobacco under different treatments. The results showed that compared with conventional irrigation, negative pressure irrigation could significantly increase the plant height of flue-cured tobacco at root spreading stage and fast growing stage, and W1 treatment was better; The maximum leaf length and leaf area of W2 treatment were significantly lower than those of CK at mature stage, and except for stem circumference, there was no significant difference between W1 treatment and CK, the stem circumference was CK>W1>W2, and the difference among treatments was significant; Compared with CK, organs dry biomass and total dry biomass of W1 did not change significantly, while W2 significantly decreased leaf dry matter, stem dry matter and total matter. The proportion of root biomass of W2 was significantly higher than that of CK, but not significantly different from that of W1; negative pressure irrigation reduced the crop coefficient of flue-cured tobacco at the middle and late stages, significantly reduced the total water consumption of flue-cured tobacco by 14.4%~45.7%; Compared with CK, W2 significantly improved the water use efficiency by 28.6%, and there was no significant difference between W1 and CK; Except that the net photosynthetic rate (P_n) at fast growing stage was CK>W2>W1, and the intercellular carbon dioxide concentration (C_i) at the mature stage was W2>CK>W1, the photosynthetic characteristics were CK>W1>W2. To sum up, –5 kPa negative pressure irrigation had no significant effect on the growth of flue-cured tobacco in Yunnan red soil, while –10 kPa negative pressure irrigation significantly restricted the growth of flue-cured tobacco.