May corn opened 5 3/4 cents higher on the day at 373 1/4 and established an early range of 368 1/4 to 375. Corn pushed through yesterday's highs in the May contract in the first minutes of the day session. However, selling in soybeans and wheat spilled over into the corn market, despite a lower dollar. Prices eased back to just above yesterday's close in corn into early mid session, but then firmed into mid morning. Corn gained substantially on wheat in the early going in moderately active trade by spreaders. This followed release of the USDA's supply/demand report for February which was considered slightly supportive in corn. The USDA lowered 2009/10 US corn ending stocks to 1.719 billion bushels, down 45 million from last month as compared with expectations for a drop of near 20 million. Exports were lowered by 50 million bushels as the pace of export sales and export inspections continues to lag behind the rate needed to hit the previous USDA target. However, the USDA boosted ethanol usage by 100 million to 4.3 billion bushels which now represents 32.7% of total projected US corn usage. World ending stocks for the 2009/10 season came in at 134.04 million tonnes, down from 136.2 million tonnes last month. The increase in projected usage for ethanol in the US resulted in an upward revision in world usage that more than offset an increase of 2.2 million tonnes in the Argentine corn crop.