OREANDA-NEWS. Chicago Board of Trade corn, wheat and soybean futures were lower on Tuesday ahead of a monthly US government crop report, pressured by a stronger dollar and ample global supplies, traders said.

At the CBOT at 10:32 a.m. CDT (1532 GMT), CBOT May corn was down 4-3/4 cents at \$3.84 per bushel. May wheat was down 3 cents at \$4.87 a bushel, and May soybeans were down 3-3/4 cents at \$9.89-1/2 a bushel.

The US dollar hit its highest since 2003 against a basket of currencies as the prospect of the first rise in US interest rates in almost a decade stoked global volatility. Strength in the dollar makes US grains less attractive to those holding other currencies. "The dollar automatically tends to put a lid on things," said Tom Fritz, a partner with EFG Group in Chicago.

Grain traders awaited the release of the US Department of Agriculture's latest supply and demand report set for 1600 GMT. Analysts said market fundamentals remained bearish, "People are wondering what the USDA report will say, but the reality remains that there is plenty of supply, and if you are in the market for wheat, you have a lot of options," said Phin Ziebell, agribusiness economist at National Australia Bank.

Analysts expect the USDA to raise the estimate for 2014/15 wheat ending stocks to 699 million bushels, from 692 million in February, according to a Reuters poll.

Soybeans pared losses after Brazilian government crop supply agency Conab cut its forecast for the 2014/15 crop to 93.3 million tonnes from 94.6 million last month.

Also, analysts expect the USDA to trim its US 2014/15 soybean ending stocks forecast to 376 million bushels from 385 million last month.

For corn, the average trade estimate of US ending stocks was 1.826 billion bushels, virtually unchanged from the USDA's February figure of 1.827 billion. But estimates ranged from 1.777 billion to 1.899 billion.

Brazil's Conab held its corn production estimate nearly steady at 78.2 million tonnes, compared with 78.4 million last month. The USDA last month pegged the Brazilian corn crop at 75 million tonnes.