Chicago agricultural commodity futures closed mixed Thursday, with corn and wheat dropping and soybean gaining slightly.

The most active corn contract for March delivery fell 5 cents, or 1.2 percent, to close at 4.12 dollars per bushel. March wheat lost 4.5 cents, or 0.76 percent, to close at 5.8425 dollars per bushel. March soybeans rose 4.5 cents, or 0.35 percent, to close at 12.7375 dollars per bushel.

March corn kept dropping Thursday and touched new lows as investors stepped aside ahead of U.S. Department of Agriculture ( USDA) grain supply report which is due to be released Friday. The market continued to expect a higher corn production and yield in the USDA report. Export sales were also disappointing, with the weekly export sales of corn totaling 6.1 million bushels.

March wheat plunged to new lows Thursday on renewed selling surfacing on weakness. Argentina sold some wheat to Brazil Wednesday, which lowered the market expectations of further U.S. sales to Brazil. EU wheat export licenses totaled 742,000 tonnes this week, with the annual exports of the crop pointing to 28 million to 29 million tonnes, a record high.

March soybean rose slightly Thursday, driven by China's purchase of 110,000 tonnes of new-crop soybeans from U.S.. Traders hope that the USDA will again report tight supply of old-crop soybeans in its Friday report. The weekly export sales of soybean totaled 5.7 million bushels.