Cotton growers need to make weather or climate related management decision all the time. Although we have some scientific basis to forecast the season ahead, most cotton growers make only limited use of our current understanding of climate variability, seasonal predictability and projected future climate trends. Primary producers in Queensland and NSW are familiar with ENSO (EI Nino - Southern Oscillation) based seasonal climate forecasts. Close interaction with the cotton industry has revealed that frequently the key issue is not the question 'how reliable are these forecastsΓ' but rather 'how can I use this information to improve overall risk management and hence my economic and environmental performanceΓ' This important distinction highlights that the bottleneck for climate risk management is riot necessarily our understanding of climatic phenomena and their degree of predictability, but rather a lack of knowledge and understanding about how to transform this information into 'actionable climate knowledge