In the context of global warming, climate change will increase the occurrence probability of extreme weather events such as severe droughts and ice storms. In recent years, the increasing frequency of ice storms in southern China has prompted us to study the impact of these weather events on the net primary productive (NPP) of forest ecosystem, particularly plantations, which are more sensitive to extreme weather events. Severe ice storms during mid-January and mid-February 2008 in southern China provided an opportunity to study the effects of this disturbance on the NPP of a plantation. We used data from field inventories and eddy covariance observations to evaluate the direct impact of the ice storms and the post-ice storm recovery in a subtropical plantation at Qianyanzhou, Jiangxi Province. We developed biomass allometric equations for the three major plantation species; estimated the NPP before and after the ice storms by combining the forest inventories for 2005, 2008, and 2011; and evaluated the recovery ability of the ecosystem. We obtained the following results. (1) The optimal biomass model developed from our survey data was a power function model. The biomass model fit for slash pine (Pinus elliottii) and Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) was improved after adding tree height as a further independent variable, whereas that of Masson pine (Pinus massoniana) was not. Compared to the biomass data collected from other stands calculated using allometric equations, the biomass calculated using the optimal model was closest to the observed values. (2) The exotic species slash pine was more severely damaged by ice storms compared with the native species Masson pine and Chinese fir; this difference can be attributed to the specific characteristics of the slash pine. A large number of broadleaved trees regenerated in the study plot after the ice storms. (3) At the individual level, the extent of damage to trees varied with the stem diameter at breast height (D): trees with a larger D were more susceptible to ice storm damage than tress with a smaller D . Prior to the ice storms, the D growth rate of Masson pine and Chinese fir increased with increasing D class (the maximum values were 1.9 and 0.8 cm/a, respectively), whereas the D growth rate of slash pine increased with decreasing D class, with a maximum value of 0.1 cm/a. Post-ice storm, the relationships between the D growth rate and D class of the three species were exactly reversed. (4) The carbon (C) density of living trees in tree layer was 57.10 t C/hm² pre-ice storm, but decreased to 46.66 t C/hm² (a reduction of-10.44 t C/hm² or 18% of the original living tree biomass pool) post-ice storm. The NPP was 736 g C m^-2 a^-1 pre-ice storm, and the carbonuse efficiency (the ratio of NPP to gross primary production, CUE) was 0.41. After nearly 4 years of recovery, the NPP was 683.08 g C m^-2 a^-1 and the CUE was 0.38. Furthermore, the biomass C storage of living trees had increased to 54.38 t C/hm².