As an important component of carbon cycle in forest ecosystem, soil respiration characteristics and its affecting factors in Chinese fir plantations have gradually become the focus. Tree growth and soil properties definitely affect soil respiration rate in the entire developmental stages of Chinese fir plantations from juvenile, medium, near mature, mature, to over mature. In this paper, the Chinese fir plantations at different developmental stages in Dagang Mountain of Jiangxi Province were selected to investigate the effects of tree growth on soil respiration rate, and the relationship between soil respiration rate and soil properties was further studied with path analysis. The results showed that soil respiration rate ranged from 0.51 μmol · m^-2s^-1 to 1.14 μmol · m^-2s^-1, and it decreased first and then increased from juvenile to near-mature, slightly increased from near-mature to mature, and significantly decreased in the over-mature forest soil. With increasing stand age, annual litterfall amount and soil cellulase activity increased gradually, invertase activity decreased first and then increased, and amylase activity had no significant change. Soil physico-chemical properties were found better in the juvenile forest, worst in the medium forest, and they recovered gradually from near-mature to over-mature with different recovery speed. The direct path coefficients of soil properties to soil respiration rate were in the descending order of annual litterfall amount, soil organic carbon content, soil cellulase activity, field capacity, non-capillary porosity, bulk density, total nitrogen content, invertase activity, capillary porosity, capillary water-holding capacity, amylase activity, and total porosity. The direct path coefficients of annual litterfall amount, soil organic carbon content and soil cellulase activity to soil respiration rate were 1.069, 0.736, 0.518, respectively, indicating the most intense direct effects. Their high indirect path coefficients further indicated the profound influence of their interaction on soil respiration rate. With intense direct and indirect effects, annual litterfall amount, soil organic carbon content and soil cellulase activity were the dominant factors for the variation of soil respiration rate.