In order to study the effect of planting Pu’er tea on macropores in the typical red soil in South of Yunnan, an experiment was conducted in shrub-grassland and tea land, staining tracer was used to observe soil profiles, Photoshop CS5 and Image Pro Plus were used to edit images of dyed soil profiles, then penetration curves of soil moisture and Poiseulle equation were used to study the characteristics of soil macropores. The results showed that the tea land was dyed in large area in plough layer, the dyeing depth was up to 40 cm. Macropore flow appeared since 2.8 cm depth in shrub-grassland. Macropore flow happened more easily and frequently in shrub-grassland than in tea land. Macropores were mainly concentrated in Width of 0.4 – 2.5 mm, and 0.4 – 1.0 mm macropores of tea and shrub-grass lands accounted for 95.2% and 95.5%, respectively. >1 mm macropores were less, and more easily found in shrub-grassland. Macropores mainly appeared in depth of 10 – 20 cm, and decreased with the increase of soil depth. Macropore density was higher in shrub-grassland than in tea land. Soil hydraulic conductivity significantly correlated with equivalent diameter densities of soil macropores and dyeing area. >1 mm micropores only accounted for 4.61% in area but controlled 90.8% variation of hydraulic conductivity. Compared with shrub-grassland, soil structure was damaged in tea land, where water moved down slowly and infiltration capacity was decreased, thus, aggravated soil erosion.