Wichita ? Grain futures rebounded Thursday, reflecting investor relief that the previous day’s foot-and-mouth rumors were false. But beef futures remained sluggish, dampening cash prices for livestock.

In the aftermath of the scare, Kansas livestock officials are grappling with how poor government communications about routine foot-and-mouth tests set off a selling panic in the commodities market.

“There was money lost yesterday that didn’t need to be lost,” said Betty Corbin, a Towanda commodities broker and a member of the Governor’s Agricultural Advisory Board.

The rumors, whose source remained unknown Thursday, even sparked a sell-off Wednesday in company stocks of fast-food hamburger outlets.

Corn futures on the Chicago Board of Trade had been pummeled on rumors that foot-and-mouth disease had been found in some Kansas cattle at a Holton livestock auction. When the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported the rumors were untrue, investors bought back nearly all the contracts they’d dumped.

But April beef futures still closed Thursday down $1.30, with a large volume of sales and heavy liquidation by the funds, Corbin said.

It began at a Holton Livestock Exchange, where nine cattle were found Tuesday with suspicious lesions at an auction. Veterinarians did not believe they had a case of foot-and-mouth disease, but sent off routine precautionary tests to the USDA just to be sure.

Rumors that Kansas had a foot-and-mouth case hit the commodities markets at midday Wednesday, driving down cattle futures to the $1.50 trading limit and recovering only slightly by the time the markets closed an hour later, Corbin said.

On Thursday, some Kansas officials blamed the spread of the rumor on poor communications. The USDA’s Plant and Animal Health Inspection Service does 800 foot-and-mouth tests each year. The country has not had a case of the disease since 1929.

“I don’t think anybody expected it to play as it did,” said Lisa Taylor, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Agriculture. “I felt the Animal Health Department expected to do something fairly routine, and they probably didn’t see the need to immediately communicate it.”