The study reports the effects of irrigation of a sodic soil with post methanation effluent (PME) of a distillery. Impact of long term effluent irrigation in the field (10 years) and short term effluent irrigation using different doses of PME in the laboratory (30 days) was studied in combination with three bioamendments i.e. farmyard manure, brassica residues and rice husk. Impact on various soil properties like EC, pH, total organic carbon (TOC), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), available phosphorus, exchangeable K, Na, Ca, Cl, microbial population and soil enzyme activities were studied. Long term application of PME proved useful in significantly increasing TOC, TKN, K, P and soil enzymatic activities in the soil but tended to build up harmful concentration of Na, that could be chelated by bioamendments. In short terms studies, application of 50% PME along with bioamendments proved to be the most useful in improving the properties of sodic soil and also favoured successful germination and improved seedling growth of pearl millet. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.