In order to study the effect of triticale on the bacterial community and petroleum hydrocarbon degradation rate in petroleum-contaminated saline-alkali soil, three concentrations of petroleum with 0 g/kg, 1 g/kg and 5 g/kg were introduced into the research and non-triticale-planted soil was set as control group for corresponding concentration of petroleum which formed six different experiment groups. The high-throughput sequencing technology was utilized to study the structure and diversity of the microbial community of six soil samples and to analyze the petroleum hydrocarbon degradation rate. The results showed that the cultivation of triticale increased the degradation of petroleum hydrocarbon by 36.67% and 33.20% in the condition of 1 g/kg and 5 g/kg petroleum, respectively. 21398 to 27899 sequencing sequences were obtained from 6 soil samples. The diversity and abundance of the bacterial communities in the rhizosphere of triticale were higher than those of the soil without plant in the petroleum-contaminated soil. Moreover, the abundance of some rhizosphere bacteria increased in the classification level of "phylum", "class", "genus", such as Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Gamma-proteobacteriaria, Alcanivoracaceae_norank, Xanthomonas, Nitrosomonadaceae_unculture, etc. Some rhizosphere bacteria with the increased relative abundance are microorganisms that use petroleum and petroleum decomposition as carbon sources. This study proved that planting triticale changed the composition and diversity of bacterial community in rhizosphere soil of petroleum-contaminated saline-alkali soil, promoted the construction of petroleum-degrading microbial community, and significantly improved the degradation effect of petroleum-contaminated saline-alkali soil. The results laid a theoretical foundation for phytoremediation of petroleum-contaminated saline-alkali soils.