Field experiment was conducted to study the effect of cropping systems and different seed priming treatments on phenotypic and physiological performance of sorghum grown as intercrop in maize. In the present investigation, the number of green leaves was higher in intercropped maize (3.01) than the sole maize (0.82). Among the priming treatments, only biopriming (2.47) was found superior to farmers' practice (1.52). With respect to RWC, at 75 DAS, all the priming treatments except hydro-priming of maize were recorded significantly higher RWC as compared to farmers practice. At 90 DAS, all the priming treatments were beneficial in recording higher RWC. In the interaction effect, in sole cropping all the priming treatments except hydropriming recorded significantly higher RWC than the farmers' practice. Similarly the SPAD value was higher in bio-priming (39.33) and combination of all priming methods (39.88) at 90 DAS. In addition to this osmopriming (15.82) recorded significantly higher SPAD value at 105 DAS.