A bale accumulator for grouping bales for group baling includes a platform, a depositor mounted adjacent to the platform for sequentially depositing bale sets onto the platform, each bale set when deposited onto the platform comprises a pair of bales positioned upright and side-by-side in a packing orientation so that their corresponding long sides are axially juxtaposed, and a packer apparatus mounted adjacent to the platform for packing one bale set at a time from the platform into a group baler trailing the platform each time a bale set is deposited onto the platform from the depositor without changing the packing orientation of the bales of each bale set.