Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.

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As the Sept. 4 dove hunting season was being set by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries last week, the Virginia Farm Bureau was gathering information on crop failures due to blistering heat and the lack of rain.

What the bureau found wasn’t pretty. “The corn crop has perished,” reported Jim Tate, a Virginia Cooperative Extension agent in Hanover County. “With no rain and oven-like conditions … most corn plants have no ears.”

In some counties, Middlesex is one, farmers are cutting corn weeks ahead of schedule. They are reporting a 50-60 percent reduction in harvest.

“A significant part of the state’s corn crop is already destroyed,” the bureau reported.

What does all this have to do with dove hunting? Plenty.

Dove hunters plan their sport around agriculture crops, particularly fresh-cut corn fields, which draw these fast-flying birds within shotgun range.

“If farmers cut their corn early, this will tend to spread the doves out,” said Gary Costanzo, a DGIF wildlife biologists. “Normally at the start of dove season there aren’t many fields cut, so the few that are cut will tend to concentrate the birds, which leads to better dove hunting. Some are cut intentionally for dove hunting.”

Costanzo’s prediction for the dove season is this: “The hot weather and poor crops will probably hunt the dove hunting somewhat.”

The dove population looked promising in the spring, Costanzo said.

“There were normal/average numbers of doves counted on the call count and breeding bird surveys,” he said.

It is too early to determine how successful this year’s hatch will be.

“We’ve just started trapping and banning doves so I don’t have a real good feel for how many young birds are out there yet,” Costanzo said.

Doves have the longest nesting season of any bird in the U.S. and will continue producing multiple broods into September. The problem isn’t likely to be a scarcity of birds as much as it will be a scarcity of crops to concentrate them in huntable numbers.

The 100-plus degree temperatures that wicked away the topsoil moisture damaged crops in addition to corn. Soybeans have been struggling; pastures have been dormant; some farmers already are feeding their cattle and the prospects for a second cutting of hay are slim. It has been slow growing even for the weeds that produce seeds that attract doves.

Scattered showers the past couple of weeks have been a tremendous help, but they came too late to rescue many crops and their benefits will be short-lived unless ample moisture continues. Much more rain is needed to get through the summer, the farm bureau reported.

So what is a dove hunter to do as he or she looks toward the hunting season? The answer is to become innovative. Here are some suggestions:

• Try some pass-shooting near a dove roosting area. While doves likely will be scattered during the day, they will funnel back to their roosting area in concentrations offering fast-paced, challenging shots. Often choice roosting sites are pine groves.
• Hunt water holes. The best will be small farm ponds near dove feeding and roosting areas. Dry weather has lowered the level of many ponds offering a nice, clear landing spot for these birds that immerse their bills and suck up water horse-like.
• Hunt crops that have been irrigated. Vegetable patches that are about to peter out are particularly good.
• Take advantage of the extra days of morning hunting available this season. (See Cochran Field Reports).
• Hunt cattle feedlots where farmers are forced to feed their livestock early and the process has created bare ground for doves to land and spilt grain for them to eat.
• As the season approaches, drive the back roads looking for concentrations of doves on power lines and determine what has drawn them to this location. Work on getting permission to hunt well ahead of opening day.
• Think outside the corn field. Look for alternate crops, such as grain fields, melon patches or sunflower plantings, to attract doves.
• Organize smaller hunts that involve two to four hunters rather than the large kind that are traditional in the South.
• Use decoys to attract scattered doves. Start experimenting with rigging wires and PVC pipes to elevate your decoys so doves can easily spot them.