Episodes of forest mortality have been observed worldwide associated with climate change, which has affected forest structure and species composition, as well as the essential ecosystem services and functions. There is increasing body of empirical studies to elucidate the spatiotemporal pattern and inherent driving mechanisms of forest growth decline and tree mortality, but related studies in China have not received much attention. Tree-ring width chronologies of growth health and decline black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) plantations in the Yangjuangou catchment in the central Loess Plateau of China were constructed, and the differences of climatic sensitivity in tree-ring annual data of growth health and decline black locust plantations were analyzed. The results showed that the quality of tree-ring chronology for growth decline black locust was lower than growth health chronology, representing the comparatively lower value of several statistical parameters, including mean inter-series correlation (Rbar), mean sensitivity (MS), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and express population signal (EPS). The growth health and decline chronologies of black locust had similar growth fluctuations in the early stage of lifespan (from 1985 to 2007), but two series had increasingly diverged at the late stage of lifespan (from 2008 to 2016) as tree-ring indices of growth decline trees had progressively fallen. The analysis of climate-growth response indicated the radial growth of growth health and decline black locust trees were both mainly controlled by drought stress, but the climatic sensitivity of growth decline trees was relatively lower and the correlations with different climatic variables (temperature, precipitation and Palmer Drought Severity Index) were also comparatively weaker. Superposed Epoch Analysis (SEA) indicated that ring width variance of growth decline and growth healthy black locust trees were both sensitive to extreme drought years, indicating that extreme drought events could significantly inhibit radial increment for black locust trees with growth decline and healthy status.In contrast, ring width variance of growth health black locust trees was more sensitive to extreme wet years than growth decline trees, indicating that growth health locust trees could gain a higher growth rate than growth decline trees, beneficial from favorable climatic conditions during the humid years. Overall, our results presented the substantial differences on annual growth trends and climatic sensitivities between growth health and decline locust trees, which could benefit the building of modelling approaches to predict forest growth decline and tree mortality of the black locust plantations on the Loess Plateau and provide scientific basis for ecological restoration and sustainable management for regional planted forests in China.