The layout of wireless sensor network (WSN) in citrus orchards was analyzed concerning radio frequency (RF) signal strength attenuation and packet loss rate of WSN based on radio wave propagation characteristics. Accordingly, a simply equipped WSN network was deployed and tested. The attenuation of radio wave was studied in the tests with the carrier frequencies of 433MHz and 2.4GHz in the circumstance of different combinations of impact factors including data rate, packet length, transmission distances, etc. The two RF signal strength linear models (433MHz and 2.4GHz) were built in citrus orchards with the related determination coefficients for fitting-curves ranging from 0.957031 to 0.971218 and 0.9546 to 0.9863. Signal attenuation tests showed that the CC1110 (433MHz) had a better performance in long distance communication with data rate lower than 1.2kb/s and the average received signal strength was higher than the 2.4GHz’s with the same output power. While the CC2530 (2.4GHz) provided lower packet loss rate compared with the CC1110 (433MHz) in transmitting in the same data rate. For WSN configuration, short data packet and low data rate were recommended according to the test results. A ZigBee star network was constructed and experimented with the guidance provided by signal attenuation tests. Statistics showed that the average success rate for communication was higher than 84%.