I was out in my garden earlier this morning and when looking over each of my plants, I found that one of them appears to have an early blight lesion on the stem, a few inches above the ground. I have no problem with early blight on any of the leaves on any of my plants including the one with the stem lesion. I can and probably will post a picture of it, but it's clearly the characteristic oyster shell concentric rings of early blight.

My main issue is that it has appeared on the main stem, a few inches above where it comes through the soil - Removing the stem isn't really an option since I would be removing the whole plant. Is there any way to treat that spot without removing the entire plant? Could I, perhaps, "paint" the infected area with a mixture of bleach and water?

Will the plant die if it has a lesion on the main stem? I'd prefer not to pull it, but if it's going to die anyway, I do still have some back-ups in larger pots. I have a lot of experience with early blight since it's a regular every year, although is usually only a nuisance in wet weather, but I've never had such a poorly placed infection site. Usually, it's just on a few of the lower leaves and I remove them as needed.

Any advice would be appreciated.