This study on adoption of cattle husbandry technologies at an African national research station used the Rwanda Agriculture Board's Rubona station as a case study and was conducted through a survey of 92 randomly-selected cattle keeping households in Rusatira Sector of Huye District where the station is located. Respondents were interviewed using a pre-tested structured questionnaire and data were analysed using standard statistical procedures. The study revealed that all the respondents knew at least one cattle-related service/technology provided by Rubona station. The majority (61.9%) ranked station services as very good, 29.4% as good, while to 8.7%, the services were bad. While only 63% of all households reared crossbred cattle, all respondents credited the station which intensively promotes grade dairy germplasm. Over half of the respondents used bovine artificial insemination (AI) service provided by station staff. Among the users of AI, 54.3% relied on it for genetic improvement, 20.6% targeted disease control, while others claimed uses that are not technically associated with it. A high (P<0.05) proportion of farmers (48%) reported frequent failure of AI as the problem which limits its use. Analysis of forage seed sources showed that Rubona station was the major provider (58.7%). Also, the station was singled out as the main contributor to disease prevention in the study area, through its novel "livestock improvement parks". Generally, livelihoods were attributed to the station suggesting that many of its technologies are being sufficiently acquired. Correlation analysis showed that education level positively influenced adoption of improved cattle breeds (r=+0.62, P=0.001), AI (r=+0.55, P=0.001), and castration (r=+0.57, P=0.001) while age of household head negatively influenced adoption of exotic breeds (r= -0.56, P=001), AI (r= -0.48, P=0.001), however, gender was not a significant factor. It is concluded that neighbours of research stations do learn a lot from the stations, but the adoption of what they learn depends on a number of factors. This study therefore recommends strengthening of the extension service on cattle management targeting the elders and the non-educated, since these were the least adopters.
