Schottky diode with directly-grown graphene on silicon substrate has advantage of clean junction interface, promising for photodetectors with high-speed and low noise. In this report, we carefully studied the influence of growth parameters on the junction quality and photoresponse of graphene nanowalls (GNWs)-based Schottky photodetectors. We found that shorter growth time is critical for lower dark current, but at the same time higher photocurrent. The influence of growth parameters was attributed to the defect density of various growth time, which results in different degrees of surface absorption for H2O/O2molecules and P-type doping level. Raman characterization and vacuum annealing treatment were carried out to confirm the regulation mechanism. Meanwhile, the release of thermal stress also makes the ideality factor η of thinner sample better than the thicker. Our results are important for the response improvement of photodetectors with graphene-Si schottky junction. © 2017 Author(s).