**1. Introduction**

Agriculture – the control of plants for human consumption – is believed to have appeared and developed during the paleolitic/neolitic period, ~ 10,000 years ago [1]. The first agriculture had no single or simple origin since a wide variety of plants and animals have been independently domesticated at different times and different places [1-4]. The origin of agriculture and crops domestication is intertwined. Plant domestication involves changes in the plant's genetic makeup and morphological appearance following successive selections within wild plants and based upon on the variations that are best suitable for humans needs [5]. Domestication is therefore an artificial selection process conducted by humans for the production of plants showing fewer undesirable traits compared to its wild related plants, and making them more dependent on the new artificial environments for their continued survival and development. The concept of selection assumes the existence of a population or group of individuals from which choices can be made. Thus, the diversity of morphotypes or genetic diversity is considered as the backbone for plant domestication and crop improvement. Nonetheless, the way this genetic diversity was probed across time has constantly evolved while being a continuum from the first day. Moreover, while the selection criteria for the desired traits and purposes in the ancient domestication process were certainly exclusively based on morphology (size, color, shape of leaves and fruits, easiness for identification) and to satisfy man's energy supply needs (taste and flavour, satiety potential), today, the required traits and purposes for plant domestication (seen as continuum) have been refined and expanded. Indeed, new technologies have been developed for probing the genetic diversity whereas human needs

© 2013 Fofana et al.; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2013 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

have increased to include health and wellbeing. As a consequence more specific and defined traits such as a targeted and defined ingredient or metabolite are sought. To date, the pace of plant domestication has slowed down mainly due to the loss of biodiversity but also because of our ability to satisfy our current food needs. Nevertheless, few new crops species are still being introduced into farming system to fill the growing gaps in the need of humans and pets. Although domestication, as a concept, is not the main focus of this chapter (reader can refer to [3, 4, 6-9]), this review will look at some aspects of plant domestication in the 21st century as compared with ancient domestication process, the extent of genetic diversity within North American roses, the challenges associated with the domestication and agronomy of Atlantic Canada wild rose species taken as an example, and how the current biotechnology tools can contribute to an economic crop production.
