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Thanks very comprehensiveOnly a few ways:
Light - the more PAR you have the more it'll color up. Your fertilizer dosing including CO2 better be on point or you find them deficiencies real fast. The longer the lights on the more the plants need to eat. It also stresses them out. Think this way, in nature they have clouds covering the sun. Trees blocking the light. Even the movement of the sun throughout the seasons. The actual color of light plays a little role but not a whole lot. We can grow fantastic healthy plants with saltwater reef lighting. The thing is the blue's wash out all the other colors making the plants look terrible. The new fad for using RGB and RGBW LEDs is more about having all the different colors so as to make their tank look better than it actually is.
Fertilizer (Nutrients) - This is very debatable. The biggest here is CO2. Plants need Carbon something like 22x more then the next element Nitrogen. We have proven lean dosing works and also rich dosing. Only a few plant species color up intensely with lean dosing aka limiting nitrogen. You can achieve the same results of dosing EI with more than enough nutrients.
Genetics - This plays a huge role here. A good example is Ludwigia pantanal vs Ludwigia meta. The same plant but meta has different genetics so much brighter (redder) vs pantanal more orangish.
Yes, interesting question indeed, I always thought that roots will absorb nutrients (including N) more efficient than the leaves !I'm sure this has been discussed, but speaking about nitrate limitation and color in some plants, why is it that the leaves still turn red with an active substrate full of N. I don't claim to be a botanist, so is the delivery of the N through the roots, more regulated vs an uncontrolled uptake through the leaf surfaces?