Information from fifteen years of on-farm research done in a semi-arid area of Texas with limited ground water resources was used to make irrigation recommendations for growing cotton when water is limited. The data supports the concept of large pre-irrigation amounts and skip row farming (when water is very limited). Care must be taken in using yield versus water studies as the stepping point to making farm decisions. The data from such tests must be put into farm budgets based on actual conditions of the farm to see where the most profitable position regarding patterns used and amount of land farmed actually lies.