For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page, and our Environment and Climate Resource page.

* Sugar beet stecklings can stay in the ground

* Ruling involves only “thin slice” of larger case

* Likelihood of irreparable injury not found

*(adds details of ruling, background, Monsanto comment)

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 25 (Reuters) – In a partial win for global biotech seed maker Monsanto Co (MON.N), a U.S. appeals court reversed a lower court’s order that called for the destruction of young genetically modified sugar beet plants, according to a ruling released on Friday.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found permits issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for juvenile biotech sugar beet “stecklings” should be given “full force and effect” and the plants need not be destroyed as a federal judge in San Francisco had ordered late last year.

Broader issues about the legality of broad commercialization of biotech sugarbeets are still undecided as the USDA works to complete a court-ordered environmental impact assessment of the crop.

But the 9th Circuit held in its decision Friday the young seedlings that were planted in September do not pose an imminent risk. The stecklings are designed to produce seed that ultimately might be made available for root crop growers in the 2012 season, or for breeding purposes.

But the ultimate use will be tied to the outcome of the arguments over commercialization of the crop. In its ruling Friday, the 9th Circuit said this issue was but a “thin slice of a larger litigation.”