its the recipe level in relation to your tradeskill level. This is imporant to know when looking for skill up to improve with.
So the list is as follows:
Red: cant learn yet.
Orange: just learned pretty tough always get a skill up.
Yellow: Equal or very close to your level. mostly get a skill up
Green: easy for you. occasionally get a skill up.
Grey: you could do it in your sleep and do. no skill up.
same scale applies to mobs incidently.. Why the site lists only grey/green im at a loss to answer.
Stormly