Presented herein are methods for the detection of the presence or absence of one or more microorganisms in a sample. The method deploys a plurality of probe sets to detect a plurality of microorganisms. The probes in the probe set are detectably labeled. At least one probe set has probes labeled with a combination of detectable labels. The number of detectable labels used in the plurality of probe sets numbers less than the number of microorganisms being detected by the probe set.