Plant Archives Volume 20 No. 2, 2020 pp. 4079-4084 e-ISSN:2581-6063 (online), ISSN:0972-5210 EFFECT OF PGPM IN CONTROLLING SEED GALL DISEASE CAUSED BY ANGUINA TRITICI ON WHEAT PLANTS Utoor H. Al-Shamma 1 , Ayyad W. Al-Shahwany 2 and Salam A.H. Al-Amiry 3 1 Agricultural Research Directorate, Ministry of Agriculture, Iraq. 2 Biology Department, College of Science, University of Baghdad, Iraq. 3 Plant Protection Directorate, Ministry of Agriculture, Iraq. Abstract A pot experiment was conducted during 22 November 2018 at plant protection directorate, Abu-Ghraib-Iraq to Evaluate the efficiency of some microorganisms (Pseudomonas fluorescence, Bacillus subtilis, Trichoderma harzianum, Verticillium sp., Paecilomyces lilacinus) used singly or in combination to control seed gall disease. Wheat seed IPA-99 variety was planted in pots filled with sterilized soil, while galls were buried between seeds. Before 48h from sowing (100ml.pot -1 ) of microbial culture was add to each pot. The experiment was designed in a complete random design CRD with four replicates, growth parameters was taken at flowering stage while yield parameters taken at harvest (8 May 2019). Results indicate reduce disease incidence of seed gall disease on wheat plants, it ranged from 0.000% to 8.020% with a significant differences from control treatment, Moreover results showed the effect of PGPM for increase flag leaf area and plant height of all treatments with a significant difference from control. Although maximum value of grain yield was 16.80g/pot, but the highest value of spike weight was ranged between 2.443g -2.133g and the highest value of biological yield ranged from 85.33g to 79.00g. Key words: PGBM, Seed gall disease, Trichoderma harzianum, Paecilomyces lilacinus Introduction Wheat Triticum aestivum L. is one of the strategic globally crops constitutes the key sources of protein in least developed countries and middle-income nations. It is one of the principle cereal crops which was grown worldwide and one of the important staples of nearly 2.5 billion of world population. Wheat is the major staple food crop that providing almost half of all calories in North Africa as well as west and central Asia, being next to rice. Globally wheat occupies around 217 million hectares so it is holding the position of highest acreage among all crops and recorded annual production hovering around 731 million tones (USDA, 2018), in Iraq at 2019 wheat cultivated area reaches 6331000 donnums, with a total production 4343 tones (CSO, 2019), Iraq currently consumes nearly 4 million tons of wheat annually (USAID, 2006). Moreover wheat like any other plant infected by many diseases, seed gall was one of the oldest reported diseases on wheat caused by Anguina tritici (Bhatti et al., 1978), sometime it named seed-gall, Gout, Purples, False (Esser et al., 1991). Unfortunately, seed gall disease could reduce human consumption and market price of wheat due to the reduction of protein and gluten content of flour produced from wheat infected with seed galls (Mustafa, 2009). Scientists indicate several practices for reduce nematodes infection such as physical, mechanical, chemical and agricultural methods (ISPM, 2017) which is considered traditional controlling ways, but recently biological methods considered the best management in which microorganisms regarded as an alternative proposal for agriculture sustainable and development, it is the better, cheaper and more environmental friendly alternative processes for controlling the specific agricultural problems and increase food productions (Hayat et al., 2010). Different authors have reviewed the properties and traits of some plant growth promoting rhizospheric microorganisms (PGPM) by their effect on promote the increase of nutrient supply and used as bio- fertilizers in addition to bio-pesticide properties (Tabassum, 2017). PGPM consist of a large group of microorganisms that can be found in the rhizosphere nearby the root surface or associated to it (Basu et al., 2017; Gupta et al ., 2018). Bacteria and fungi are fundamental and essential part of soil ecosystem and their presence is beneficial for plant growth to keep soil environment rich