In order to analyze the cutting performance of wheat straw, reciprocating cutting test bench for simulating the cutting process of wheat straw in laboratory was designed. The designed test bench was composed of body frame, chopped header, crank connecting link, AC motor and etc. The forward speed was 0~1.8m/s, cutting speed was 0~1.6m/s, cutting angle was 0~30°, and adjustable blade gap was in the range of 0.8~3mm. The paper mainly focused on the working performance of test bench and cutting performance for wheat straw. Orthogonal test with four factors and four levels and single factor test was carried out. The results showed that: with the range R, the order of factors affected the cutting performance could be determined as: cutting position, cutting speed, blade gap and cutting angle. With a given experimental factors and levels, the optimum combination of parameters were: cutting speed of 1.4m/s, cutting angle of 20°, blade gap of 1mm and cutting position of the third section of wheat straw.