Carbohydrate storage enables plants to tolerate both seasonally unfavourable conditions and recover from disturbance. Although short-term changes in storage levels due to disturbance are fairly well known, less is known about long-termchanges in storage levels, especially in response to cessation of repeated disturbance. Additionally, whereas it is presumably the total amount (pool) of storage carbohydrate reserves that is of importance, typically carbohydrate concentrations aremeasured instead, as a proxy. We assessed changes in carbohydrate concentrations and pools in storage organs and changes in above-versus belowground biomass in response tomowing cessation in nine herbs fromtwomeadows (dry and wet) at the (June) peak of vegetation development and the (October) growing season end 1 and 3 years after the change in the disturbance regime. We tested three hypotheses: (1) storage will increase with abandonment of mowing only in the first year after disturbance cessation, but not further increase subsequently, as high storage would hinder competitive ability; (2) storage will increase towards the end of the season in both disturbed and undisturbed plants; and (3) changes in carbohydrate concentrations are accurate predictors of changes in pools. Although speciesspecific changes in carbohydrate reserves occurred in thewetmeadow, more general trends appeared in the drymeadow. There, plants accumulated higher carbohydrate reserves at the end of the season, especially in unmown plots. However, the reserves for plants in both disturbance regimes were the same at the growing season peak (June) in both examined years. The increase in storage of carbohydrates on unmown plots in October wasmanifested by increases of both storage organ biomass and carbohydrate concentration, whereas in mown plots, it was due only to increased carbohydrate concentration. Although concentrations and pools represent different aspects of plant carbohydrate economy, concentrations will represent short-term responses to changed disturbance regimes.